


Death in the Family

by AngelQueen87



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bat Family, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fake Character Death, Future Fic, Gen, League of Assassins - Freeform, Original Character(s), Post-Season/Series 02, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-02 00:48:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 51,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5227514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelQueen87/pseuds/AngelQueen87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arrowverse Adjacent/Diverges & Expands Post Arrow Season 2</p><p>Felicity wasn't always just Felicity Smoak, EA to Oliver Queen by day and the Arrow's partner at night. She used to wear a mask of her own, but after one botched mission she shed her secret identity and became a civilian before joining the Arrow's crusade. </p><p>But then Ra's al Ghul learned a secret about her and attempted to covet it for himself to use for the League of Assassins.</p><p>Left with no other options, Felicity faked her death to protect the ones she loves and disappeared, spending the next three years of her life running from assassins and hitmen. But once she's told it's safe to go home again, she's got three things on her mind: find the Dark Archer, bring the Canary's murderer to justice, and put her life back together so that she can finally tell Oliver that she loves him.</p><p>Crossposted on Fanfiction.net</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on FF.net.
> 
> There’s magic and its unknown origins, metahumans, Batman and fam, the Flash, League of Assassins, A.R.G.U.S., no aliens, no Amazons, no Space Cops (i.e. Green Lanterns of any sort), lots of action, some blood, a little torture. 
> 
> We’re going to travel the globe some and hopefully you don’t get too lost on the way. Time jumps around here some, but I’ll always tell you WHEN and WHERE we currently are.
> 
> Felicity’s got a past in this one, and it’s one that she thought that she had buried properly.
> 
> Olicity is our endgame but it’s going to be a rocky road to get there.

**December 2015, a couple weeks before Christmas**

**Gotham City, New Jersey – 2:05 PM EST.**

“I’m standing outside Wayne Tower where five people have been standing on the roof of the building for nearly an hour now,” Vicki Vale reported. She held back a shudder as a harsh wind blew across the cold streets of Gotham. It had just begun to snow and the sight was both beautiful and tragic considering the circumstances. “I’ve just been told that the names of these five people are Gabriella Talbot, August San Nicolas, Andrew O’Sullivan, Percy Smoak, and Felicity Smoak.”

She glanced up behind her at the tall, imposing tower above her just as a scream issued from nearby. Vicki let out a horrified gasp as she watched as five bodies plummeted down to the ground like speeding bullets.

They hit the ground around the same time after what seemed like a lifetime, each with a sickening thud.

* * *

**Starling City, California – 12:17 PM PST.**

The doors to the elevator on the executive floor opened and a young man wearing a red sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over his head rushed out. The man moved with both purpose and trepidation as he ignored the young woman sitting at the desk that had stood up and attempted to stop him as he shoved open the door to the office.

“You need to see this,” he said without preamble, dropping the tablet in his hands onto the desk.

“Roy?” Oliver glanced over at his other partner and sometimes bodyguard Digg. The man just shrugged in confusion and shook his head. “What’s wrong, Roy?”

Roy pushed his hood back and shook his head, unable to say the words to his mentor. “Just look,” he insisted, pointing at the tablet aware that his hand was shaking.

With a heavy sigh Oliver picked the tablet up and turned it on. An article published a little less than an hour ago by the Gotham Gazette stared back at him on the screen. Oliver looked back up to stare at Roy, who was now pacing back and forth the length of his office.

“What is this? What am I supposed to be looking at, Roy? What’s so important about the suicide of a group of people on the other side of the country? It’s tragic and unfortunate, yes, but we couldn’t have stopped it.”

“Read it!” Roy yelled at him, roughly grabbing fistfuls of his hair and tugging anxiously. “Read it, Oliver, and you’ll know why it’s important!”

Oliver picked the tablet back up and read through the article. After a moment he understood and Oliver felt the dread build in the pit of his stomach, threatening to make him sick. The tablet slipped from his fingers and dropped to his desk.

“Oliver?” Digg stared between the two men, his brow furrowed in confusion. “What’s going on?”

He closed his eyes and bowed his head, unable to hold it up anymore. “Felicity…” he whispered.

“What about her, Oliver?”

“She’s dead!” Roy snapped, unable to take it any longer. “Felicity’s dead! She jumped off of a building and killed herself!”

* * *

**Blüdhaven, New Jersey – 10:49 PM EST.**

Felicity sat on the edge of the metal table beneath the wall of weapons and gear next to her brother and listened as the others spoke. She flashed the pen light in each of his blue eyes and then checked the back of his head where he had hit the pavement earlier.

“Thank you for helping us, Bruce,” Gabriella murmured, her French accent thicker than usual. “You don’t know how much this means to us. After what happened…” she trailed off.

“You’re welcome, Gabriella,” he replied. “If there’s anything else that you need before you go, don’t hesitate to ask. We will be glad to help you.”

“Just make sure the story, the death certificates, _everything_ , is wiped,” Drew said. “If we can somehow return back to our regular lives in the future, none of us want our deaths to be questioned by people.”

The sound of someone quickly typing on a keyboard suddenly became prominent in the warehouse. “Already on it,” Tim announced, his fingers flying across the keys as he spoke. “Once a few months go by, all I have to do is hit a key and it’ll be gone.”

Felicity parted the hair on the back of Percy’s head and lightly probed the thin scar that had formed where his skull had been cracked open. The teenager’s work was always superb, she had to give him that. “Does this hurt?” she asked, pressing her fingers against the scar.

“No,” he said. She nodded and then playfully ruffled his freshly dyed hair. It had been awhile since she had seen his natural brown and it was a nice change from his usual vibrant reds, blues and greens. Percy grinned and swatted her hands away. His expression turned serious a moment later and he looked his sister in the eyes. “We’re going to be okay, right, Felicity? All of us?”

She nodded, gaze unwavering. “Yeah, we’re going to be fine,” she reassured him as she took his hand in hers and pulled him down off the table with her. “Now, c’mon, let’s join the others.”

They crossed the main room of the warehouse and joined the others where they stood standing around the main computer of Nightwing’s main base of operations. Gabriella wiped a stray tear from beneath her eye with the back of her hand and turned to face the siblings as they approached. She gave Percy a small encouraging smile and squeezed his shoulder as he went to talk to Tim. Her green eyes slid across to stare at Felicity and she frowned disapprovingly.

Felicity looked away and crossed her arms defensively. “What?”

“You know what – why didn’t you tell him? Don’t you think he has a right to know the truth?” she questioned. “Considering the way the two of you feel about each other I think he does.”

“He doesn’t know how he feels,” Felicity scoffed.

Gabriella pursed her lips and skeptically raised a brow at her. “I would say that it’s the very opposite, that he _does_ know, Felicity. And I would know considering that _I am Love_ ,” she stressed. “I _know_ love. I can _feel_ it, _ma_ _chérie_ , and it’s there between the two of you. A beautiful, pure love…When I met him at Percy’s graduation six months ago, before all of this _connerie_ happened, I _saw_ it in his _eyes_. _Felt_ it in his _touch_ when he shook my hand. _And it just radiated off of the man in waves._ ”

She closed her eyes and sighed dreamily, clutching both of her hands to her chest against her heart. “He loves you so much, Felicity, and the belief that you died is going to _kill_ him,” Gabriella whispered, reaching out to softly caress the apple of Felicity’s cheek.

Felicity sighed and leaned into her touch, suddenly reminded of when her mom would do the same thing. She felt the same love radiate off of Gabriella and she let it wash over her like a balm. After a moment she pulled away and shook the feeling off. “He’s better off not knowing the truth. It’s safer for him this way.”

Gabriella frowned at her again. “Did you at least tell your mother?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, of course we did. And I made sure that she’ll be well supported.”

“Is she the only person he told too?”

Felicity nodded, pushing her own freshly dyed hair – it was as close as she was going to get to her real brunette color – back from her face. “Yeah,” she sighed. “He told me that the only person important enough to know was Mom, so…” She shrugged helplessly.

Gabriella sighed and pulled her into a hug. “I’m going to miss you, Felicity,” she whispered into her hair.

“Me too, Gabriella,” she whispered back, her voice thick with emotion.

“This isn’t goodbye, _hermanita_. More like I’ll see you soon.” Felicity pulled away enough to look at Auggie as he approached them. She gave him a watery smile and he wrapped the two women in his arms. After a moment she pulled away to give them a few minutes alone and went to stand next to Bruce.

“Thank you for helping us. It was a lot to ask of anyone.”

He crossed his arms and leaned against the table behind him as he stared intently at Felicity. “We’ll track you all down and notify you when it’s safe to return. But I have to warn you that it may be years before he calls them off their search.”

Felicity sighed softly and looked away at the main screen where Tim had pulled up the digital copies of their death certificates. “I just wish that it didn’t have to come to this.” She sighed again and removed her glasses before covering her eyes with her hand. “We’re just lucky that we were able to get into contact with Klarion in such short notice, otherwise…” she trailed off and tensed at the sudden feeling of Bruce’s hand on her shoulder before forcing herself to ignore her initial instinct to flip him clear across the room and relax. “It would have been a bloodbath – us against them with the people closest to us in the crossfires.”

“It’s going to be okay,” he murmured softly, squeezing her shoulder.

“That’s yet to be seen,” a voice interjected flatly. Felicity pulled her hand away to look at Drew. She rolled her eyes to herself and frowned at him. Before she could say something, Dick appeared in the doorway still dressed in his Blüdhaven PD uniform.

He squared his shoulders and stepped into the room, his expression grim as he quickly scanned the room with keen blue eyes. His uniform was wrinkled and his dark hair was a disheveled mess after running his hands through it all day long. Dick huffed out a sigh and walked straight to his mentor and father-figure.

“It took a while but I got it done, Bruce. They think their families came to retrieve their bodies,” he informed him.

Bruce nodded and pushed away from the table. All conversation ceased and everyone’s attention shifted to him as he walked to the center of the room. “It’s time,” he said, taking a moment to meet each person’s gaze.

Felicity nodded and she and her friends exchanged hugs as Bruce, Dick and Tim looked on. There were tears and promises to be careful were made in their last few moments together and Felicity couldn’t hold back her sobs. Percy stood at her shoulder silent, avoiding everyone’s gazes by focusing on the toe of his boot, and Felicity gripped his hand tightly in hers before squeezing. He sniffled quietly and bit his lip as he squeezed back in thanks.

“Remember: this isn’t the end,” Auggie reminded them. “We’ll see each other again.”

Without looking up Percy spoke. “I have _faith_ that we will,” he whispered. Gabriella smiled softly and pressed a kiss on his cheek.

Drew stuck his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans and looked on to each of their faces, his expression grim and a little bit of something else. “I can be a real fucking pessimist sometimes, but I’m still _Hope_. I have hope that everything will turn out okay.”

They fell silent and when they found that there was nothing to else say that hadn’t already been said over the past week, they parted their separate ways.

It was a great sacrifice on their part, but it was a small price to pay to protect the people they love.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos, guys! I'm glad you're liking it so far :)

**Thirty-two months later.**

**Budapest, Hungary - July 26, 9:58 PM local time.**

“When can we leave? This place is fucking disgusting. I feel like I’m going to get a disease just standing here.”

Sacrifice ignored him and sat with her back pressed against the wall so that she could see the door and lone window in the small room. Her black compound bow rested on the floor next to her and the matching quiver full of arrows was leaning against the wall next to it, innocent but deadly.

She silently watched her brother as he paced the length of the room, back and forth over and over again in a small circuit. Faith continued to curse and complain about the conditions of the building, his hands alternating between clenching into tight fists at his sides and grabbing at the long stands of his dark hair and tugging. She let him rant angrily for another few minutes before interrupting his little tirade.

“Give it a rest,” she sighed, halfheartedly kicking out a leather boot-clad foot and tapping his shin lightly with her toe. He ignored her and resumed his pacing. “I know that this place isn’t exactly at the top of your list, considering the circumstances, but it’s the best I could find since the church got compromised.”

He snorted derisively and shook his head. “This _place_ ,” he sneered angrily, “is a fucking _brothel_ , Felicity! A whore house! Have you seen the condition of this place? It looks like the roof is about to cave in at any moment and if you so much as step on these floors in the wrong place, you’re guaranteed to break something in the fall.”

_Such a drama queen,_ she thought, rolling her eyes to herself.

“Would you prefer to be in a cell instead?” Sacrifice asked. “We can go back to Tibet right now if you want.” She made to get up, but he shot her a wild look full of panic and quickly shook his head.

_“NO!”_

“That’s what I thought.” She settled back on the floor and rested her head against the wall behind her. “Being here makes you uncomfortable, I know, but it’s just until morning. As soon as the sun is up we can go, I promise.” He nodded and opened his mouth to say something, but she held a hand up to silence him. Her eyes flickered upward and she listened.

Two people, one considerably lighter than the other, moving fast.

With her hand, she silently gestured once to the ceiling and then the window. He nodded and silently scooped up his katana. They quietly crept to the window and stood on either side of it, backs pressed against the wall, and waited with bated breath, their weapons at the ready.

An hour. One lousy hour before someone else tried to kill them.

Something told her that they should have just fled the city as soon as the church was set on fire with them inside.

A dark shadow materialized across the floor and grew, completely blocking out the moonlight that filtered in. Faith and Sacrifice shared a look and gripped their weapons tighter as a gloved hand reached down from above and slowly raised the window. A dark shape swooped into the room, followed by a smaller, brighter one.

Before the two figures could move, they had their weapons drawn and raised.

“Slowly turn around,” Sacrifice ordered, her arm pulled taut as she pulled back on the bowstring.

They did as she said with little hesitance and upon catching sight of their faces the two the siblings lowered their weapons and relaxed from their defensive positions.

“Batman. Robin,” she greeted with an audible sigh before pulling off her mask and replacing it with her trusty glasses, once again becoming Felicity Smoak.

The Dark Knight stepped forward with his current Boy Wonder sticking close to his side like a silent creeping shadow. His signature cowl with the pointed bat ears concealed all but his mouth and chin, hiding away his expression and whatever he was feeling at the moment. But the slight downturn of his lips told them everything and nothing at the same time.

Beside her Faith pushed his goggles up to rest on his forehead. “What are you doing here?” Percy asked, his brow wrinkled in concern.

“I could ask the same of you,” Batman returned in his gravelly voice. “Why didn’t London work out?”

Felicity sighed heavily at the mention of London. “There was somewhat of an _incident_ during our fourth month there,” she told him glancing at her brother out of the corner of her eye.

Percy crossed his arms and scoffed at her words. “Pfft, _incident_. More like ambush,” he corrected. “As soon as we walk into the apartment _this one’s_ ,” he gestures to the young Robin, “mother and aunt come smashing in through the back windows! We hit the deck when they started throwing their little knives at us and grabbed the first weapons could find and fought them off. Feliss basically _threw_ Nyssa back out the window and that’s when Talia backed off. Her parting words were, um-” His nose scrunched up as he tried to remember.

“She said, ‘Greetings from the Demon’s Head,’” Felicity supplied, taking pity on him. “I got the feeling that neither of them knew why Ra’s sent them there or who we were. They were only following orders.”

“Grandfather found you, but how?” All eyes shot to look at the young Robin at the sound of his voice.

She frowned at his question thoughtfully. “We aren’t sure, actually. We assume Ra’s faceless guards did, but we never came across any of them.”

“Anything else you want to know?” Percy asked the Dynamic Duo.

Batman’s frown deepened as he silently contemplated the brother and sister. After a few moments he spoke. “Is it true that the two of you were held prisoner by Ra’s for nearly a year?”

“Why bother asking a question you already know the answer to?” Felicity returned with a raised brow. She shared a look with her brother before addressing Batman again. “Why are you here?”

“Ra’s called off his search for you and had the Nameless return to Nanda Parbat two weeks ago.”

“Two _weeks_? Why are we just finding this out?” She glared up at Batman in disbelief as Percy sputtered beside her. Why would the man sit on information this important? “Did you at least tell the others? Drew? Auggie? Gabriella?” she asked.

“If I was able to track them down, I would have told them, Felicity. Andrew and August are no longer in Ireland or Spain. From what I was able to gather, they haven’t been there for an extended period of time. Maybe a year or longer. The Talbot estate has acquired greater security measures making it an impenetrable fortress.”

Felicity’s mind raced as she took in the news. Something similar to what happened in London must have happened to them too. It was the only other explanation for why the guys would leave. The same could have been said about the Talbot’s. Why else would Gabriella’s parents feel the need add security beyond what they were already capable of?

But if Batman wasn’t able to track them down, then how…

“Then how did you find us?” Percy asked, obviously thinking along the same lines as her. “We haven’t stayed in the same place any longer than a few days for the past two months.”

“At every fire or building explosion that has been caused by Joe Rigger in the last three weeks, a masked man and woman have been seen fleeing each site by the local authorities,” Batman told them, voice flat and dripping of exasperation. “Is there a reason why the two of you are actively hunting an arsonist across Europe when you’re supposed to be in hiding?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Felicity saw Percy fidget under the Bat’s scrutinizing gaze. “Let’s just say that I have somewhat of a dispute to settle with the firebug,” she murmured darkly. Batman frowned at her but said nothing.

After a long, uncomfortable silence Percy clapped his hands together and noisily cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, looking first at his sister and then at Batman and Robin, “looks like Feliss and I are going to have to locate our friends in whatever most likely remote and-or rundown part of the world they have decided to hole up in and tell them it’s safe to finally go home. Batman, thank you for coming and telling us the good news. Demon child, continue to behave yourself for your father and your brothers.” Robin gave him a Bat-worthy glare and scowled.

Felicity pursed her lips and rolled her eyes at her brother before turning to address Batman. “Thank you,” she repeated, “You didn’t have to help us back then, but you did anyway and we’ll always be grateful.”

Batman nodded. “You’re welcome. If there’s anything else you need help with, don’t hesitate to ask.”

The corner of her mouth curled up at that. “Well, there’s one little thing you can help with…”

* * *

**Las Vegas, Nevada**

**Las Vegas Strip - August 1, 10:17 AM PST.**

Felicity pushed her sunglasses up the bridge of her nose and scanned the area around her.

It was late morning so the sidewalks were filled with mostly tourists who were oohing and aahing over the glittering sights as they were in the day. Shuttles, double-decker buses, and all kinds of taxis and cars moved up and down the road, dropping off and picking up passengers at the hotels and casinos. Kiosks selling souvenirs and street performers dotted the sidewalk.

The sun was shining high in the sky without a cloud in sight and the temperatures were pushing 100, making a light sheen of sweat build on her forehead and causing her long brown hair stick to her skin in an uncomfortable way.

She detested it here for those reasons and more, but her mother called Las Vegas home and she loved her mother so she tolerated it.

“Are you sure coming here was a good idea, Feliss?” Percy murmured lowly, taking a long pull from the steaming coffee cup she handed him. He let out a strangled scream followed by a hiss and began to fan his tongue. “Hot, hot, hot!” he muttered, quickly dropping his coffee down on the table.

Felicity chuckled and sat down across from him at the little table they were able to secure on the outdoor patio of one of the coffee shops on the Strip. “I’m sure. We need the other two so that we can get passed all of the extra security at the Talbot estate. I can easily disable the cameras and everything else but we can’t take out all of the guards on our own. I don’t know where Gabriella’s parents found all those guys, but if you haven’t noticed, they’re not exactly _normal_. We’re faster and stronger than the average person, but still.”

“Metahumans,” he mumbled around the bite of muffin in his mouth, crumbs dropping everywhere.

She nodded, handing him a napkin. “Right. And in order to find Drew we need a mob connection which I can get here in Vegas,” she reminded him, taking a sip of her own coffee.

“From an actual mobster?” he asked skeptically, wiping at his mouth.

“Yes.”

“And this is the same mobster you put the fear of God in and later asked to take care of Mom and the laundry list of things you left while we were gone?” She nodded once. Percy let out a short laugh and shook his head to himself. “You make the weirdest friends, Felicity.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call him a _friend_. More like…an acquaintance who feels like he’s forever indebted to me,” she corrected.

He stared at her slack jawed before closing his mouth with an audible snap. “What the hell did you do get someone like that under your thumb?”

“I saved his daughter from some bad people when everyone else he sent failed.” He just stared at her in disbelief but didn’t say anything.

She sat back in her chair and crossed her legs as best she could. She and Percy had temporarily traded in their masks and leather boots, pants and jackets for civilian attire that was Vegas friendly and allowed them to blend in - a tight, dark purple halter dress and black pumps for her and a dark gray suit with no tie for him.

Felicity pulled her phone from her clutch and checked the time. She placed it back and stood. “Come on, it’s time to go.”

* * *

**Bellagio Hotel and Casino - August 1, 11:22 AM PST.**

“The Bellagio. _Of course._ Why am I not surprised? The Italian mob _must_ be in the Italian themed hotel and casino.”

Felicity hit Percy with the back of her hand, making him wince and rub his chest. “Keep your voice down,” she scolded, glaring at him. Did he _want_ a gun pointed at his head right now?

He shot her an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”

Rolling her eyes, she continued toward the center of the casino floor with him one step behind at her shoulder. They paused near a blackjack table and Felicity quickly scanned the faces around them before pausing on a man wearing a black suit walking the floor discretely watching the people.

“There,” Felicity said, pointing him out with an incline of her head.

Percy her line of sight and snorted. “Him? He looks like an extra that just walked straight off of the set of _The Godfather_.”

They casually weaved their way around the card tables, slot machines, and people gambling their hard-earned money away until they were standing behind the man. Felicity plastered on a friendly expression and lightly tapped him on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry, but do you think you could help me?” she asked demurely, keeping her expression as open and innocent as possible. “I’m looking for someone and I’m not exactly sure where to find him. His name is Salvatore Ferraro.”

The man who was obviously part of the casino’s surveillance team started slightly as the name came out of her mouth. His gaze narrowed as he intently scrutinized first Felicity and then Percy. Her smile grew as she saw his hand slowly move to rest on his hip just inside his jacket where he definitely had a gun holstered. He thought they were a threat. That was good. They were talking to the right person.

“What do you want with Mr. Ferraro?” he asked, still eying them suspiciously.

Felicity's smile turned cool and the look in her eye became almost predatory as she stepped closer to the man. “Inform him that Miss Smoak would like to speak with him in private,” she said, noting the flash of recognition in his dark eyes.

He nodded jerkily before stepping away and pulling out his cell phone. After a quick heated exchange in Italian, the man turned back to the pair and beckoned them to follow. “Come with me.”

They crossed the casino floor, weaving back through the card tables and slot machines until they stopped at an elevator in the hotel. The doors opened a moment later to reveal another Godfather wannabe in a gray suit waiting on the inside. He nodded to the first one, barely acknowledging the Smoaks, as they boarded the elevator. Felicity suppressed the urge to roll her eyes and settled for giving Percy an encouraging smile. He returned it with an uncertain one of his own.

He was nervous, she could tell.

Sometimes she forgot that he was still just a kid when he asked her to make that sacrifice. Fourteen years old and just about to start high school. He had never had to deal with these types of people, never made the types of connections she or the others did. The only one he ever made was with Tim Drake at a WayneTech Expo back in Gotham while he was in college and that was by total accident apparently.

Sometimes she questioned what Love and Devotion were thinking when they approached him all those years ago, but then she remembered how outspoken he could be when it came to innocent people being oppressed by those stronger than them. She remembered that all he wanted was the strength to protect those who couldn't protect themselves.

As they rode the elevator up, Felicity continued to watch her brother out of the corner of her eye. He was more nervous that she originally thought. His expression was neutral, giving nothing of his inner turmoil away, but it was the motion of his thumb sweeping across the pads of his fingers like he was flicking the sharp point of a knife that tipped her off.

His faith, his confidence, was wavering some.

_Maybe I should have come alone. Sent him on ahead to see Mom._

Percy met her worried gaze and gave a slight shake of his head followed by the tightening of his jaw. _Don't send me away_ , it said. She pursed her lips and dipped her head once.

The doors to the elevator opened just then and Goon 1 led the way down the hallway while Goon 2 trailed behind them. They stopped in front of a set of double doors and Goon 1 knocked on the door. It opened a second later to reveal yet another Godfather wannabe on the other side. He glanced at first Felicity and then Percy before ushering them inside the suite and leading them into the living area.

Felicity noted six armed men, the telltale bulge of a handgun strapped at their hip or shoulder underneath their suit jackets giving them away. Her gaze quickly scanned the suite, taking in the three closed doors and the two hallways that led to other parts of the hotel room.

“Ah, Miss Felicity!”

A wide smile spread across Felicity’s face as her attention turned to the older man sitting on one of the plush cream sofas. He was older than Bruce by just a little more than a decade give or take a few months if her memory was correct, making him almost 57, and was one of the nicest, most polite mobsters that she had ever met. His thick black hair was gray at the temples and had receded some in the years since she had last seen him. The ever-present tan he had stood out against the crisp white of the dress shirt he wore.

Salvatore Ferraro stood at his full, imposing height of 6’3”, waved off his men as they made to pat Felicity and Percy down, and crossed the room until he stood in front of Felicity. He grinned, delighted, and swooped down to kiss both of her cheeks before clasping her hand tightly between both of his warm ones. “You’re as lovely and beautiful as always.”

“Sal,” she greeted warmly. “How have you been? How’s your daughter?”

He chuckled heartily and patted her hand before releasing her. “I’m good, dear, and Sophia is happily living in Metropolis still, which she wouldn’t be if it weren’t for you,” he answered. Salvatore’s attention shifted and he stared at Percy in curiosity. “I see you’ve brought a friend with you.”

Felicity smiled and wrapped her arm reassuringly around her brother’s tense shoulders and drew him close as she made introductions. “Sal, this is my brother Percy. Percy, I’d like you to meet Salvatore Ferraro.”

Percy gave him a polite, albeit a little bland, smile. “Hi.”

The mobster’s eyes widened slightly in surprise as his gaze flicked between the two. “I didn’t know you had a sibling, dear! It’s a pleasure to meet you, Percy.” He frowned suddenly and quickly snapped his fingers twice, prompting one of his men to step forward. “How terribly rude of me! I haven’t offered you anything to drink yet. Would either of you care for some water, coffee, tea? Perhaps a glass of wine? Or maybe a little champagne?”

“A bottle of water would be nice if it’s not too much to ask,” Felicity requested, keeping her smile polite.

Percy shook his head slightly. “Nothing for me,” he said, keeping close to his sister’s side.

Salvatore nodded and barked out an order in Italian to the goon that had stepped forward before turning back to them with a smile. “Let’s sit.” They settled on the sofas, Felicity and Percy on one while Salvatore sat across from them on the other with the glass coffee table separating them. “Now, is it safe to assume that this isn’t purely a social call? If I remember correctly, you and I were in a similar position as this one when you asked me to take care of your mother and the few things on that list of yours in your absence just before all of that nasty faking your death business in Gotham.”

Percy and Felicity shared a look at the last part. Oh, yes, they ‘faked’ their deaths alright.

A bottle of water was placed on the table in front of Felicity by the goon Salvatore had sent away and she gave him a smile of thanks as he handed a glass of red wine to his boss. “Do you mind clearing the room for me? This is something I don’t want getting out and spreading like wildfire before we even start.”

He nodded and gave another order in Italian. Almost immediately all of his men filed out of the suite into the hall. “Okay. Go ahead, dear.”

Felicity leaned forward, letting her polite smile slip away as she stared Salvatore down. “I need you to vouch for me as one of your people. All you need to do is confirm my identity as one of your enforcers if someone comes around and starts asking questions.”

He frowned for a moment in thought before slowly nodding. “Okay. That can be done, Felicity. Just give me a name and a little bit of a back story to go along with it and you’ll be all set after we iron out all of the details.”

The corners of Felicity’s mouth ticked upward and she crossed her legs as she finally relaxed back into the soft cushions of the sofa. “Thank you, Sal.”

* * *

**Magicians’ Alley - August 1, 4:15 PM PST.**

Magicians’ Alley was a high-end lounge near the Hard Rock Café that basically only had professional magician acts perform every night. According to the little pamphlet that was shoved into Felicity’s hands the moment she walked through the doors by an apathetic man with a unibrow and a soul patch, the lounge had only been open for the past eighteen months, which explained why neither she or Percy had heard of the place before.

The entire place was giving off a strong vibe that they only ever felt when true magic, like the magic Klarion used on them all those months ago, was being used. And it was strong - almost as strong as the powerful aura that Klarion exuded causing his eyes to glow a startling bright blue at times. Felicity had only ever met one other magic user like him and according to the pamphlet it looked like she was about to perform tonight.

“Are you sure she works here and not at that other place?” Percy asked suddenly.

Felicity folded the pamphlet and tucked it into her clutch. “She works here. While you were waiting for the elevator, I checked with Sal and he said she’s been waitressing here since day one. He offered her all kinds of jobs at all kinds of other places, but she insisted on working here,” she told him.

He frowned at her and glanced around the room again. “What makes this place so special? It’s almost like being at any of the hotels on the strip.”

“You can’t feel it, can you?” she asked, eyeing him speculatively.

Percy shook his head and stared at her in confusion through narrowed blue eyes. “Feel what, Felicity? I’m not feeling anything other than confusion at your cryptic little question.”

An older blonde woman wearing the white collared shirt with the black vest on top with the matching black pants marking her as one of the waitresses suddenly rounded the corner of their booth, the fake plants that lined the top of the booth doing a good job hiding the two.

“Donna Smoak,” Felicity called out just as the woman was about to walk passed them.

The blonde woman paused, hands on her hips, and slowly turned to face them. She pursed her lips and stared them down through hardened blue eyes. “Depends on who’s asking.”

Felicity smirked and leaned across the table. She beckoned her to come closer like she had a secret to tell and stage whispered, “Your kids, Mom.”

A hand flew up to Donna’s mouth as she fought back a sob once she really took a look at them. “Oh, my babies!” she cried as Percy and Felicity stood from the booth. “I’ve missed you so much!” Donna wrapped them both in her arms and squeezed the life out of them, pressing kiss after kiss on their faces, no doubt leaving a bright red lipstick stain or two.

“Mom,” Percy wheezed, patting her awkwardly on the back. “I think you can let go now. People are starting to stare.”

Donna squeezed them tightly to her one last time before releasing them. “Oh, I’m so happy to see you two are safe,” she cooed as they slide into the booth.

Felicity held her mom’s hand tightly in both of her own. “It’s so good to see you again, Mom. We’ve missed you—so much.”

“I’ve missed you too, baby. You two were never far from my thoughts. Every day I’d wonder if you were alright, if you were safe from those people,” she whispered, looking between her two children. Donna sniffled into one of the napkins on the table. “And I wondered if I would ever see you two again, but now I don’t have to anymore because you’re here.” She broke down into fresh tears and Percy rubbed a hand soothingly up and down her back.

“Don’t cry, Mom. Me and Feliss are here, we’re with you, and that’s good—right?”

She nodded and gratefully took the fresh napkin Felicity offered her and used it to wipe her eyes. “It is, baby, it is. I’m just so happy that I get to hold the two of you in my arms again. And look at you two! I haven’t seen this color on either of you since you were little,” she remarked, fingering the long brown strands that hung in her son’s eyes before sweeping them back.

“Are you back?” she asked suddenly, intently looking between her children’s faces. “Are you finally _home_?”

Felicity slowly shook her head. “No, not officially. There are a few things we have to take care of first. But we’re staying in Vegas for a couple days before we head to Starling and then Central,” she added once she saw the happiness dim in her mom’s eyes.

“Yeah, we’ve kind of been running around nonstop for a couple months now. Feliss and I thought that we could take a little time to breathe before we jumped back in again and what better way than to spend it with you, Mom?” Percy asked softly, wrapping his arm tight around her shoulders.

The lights suddenly dimmed and a spotlight came on and traveled around the room a couple times before finally stopping on the stage. Music started to play and the stage filled with an intense purple smoke.

“Oh, you two came just in time for the show,” Donna whispered excitedly.

Percy tried to catch his sister’s eye, but Felicity avoided his gaze, splitting her focus on their mom’s excited expression and the smoke-filled stage. He frowned and glared at her through narrowed eyes. “What show? What am I missing here?”

“The main show with the house magician,” Felicity supplied.

Donna grinned and patted his knee. “You know her, baby—you went to high school with her. Zatanna Zatara - she’s Magicians’ Alley’s resident illusionist. Didn’t you have a crush on her at one time?”

“Zee?” he choked out. Felicity snickered and he shot her a glare. “You knew she was performing! That’s why you wanted to wait so long to come here.”

“There’s another reason. Zatanna is like Klarion, Percy,” Felicity said, drawing his attention away from the stage. “She’s not as powerful as him, but they’re the same—she started showing signs around the same time Gabriella and Auggie approached you that summer.”

“Are you positive?”

She nodded. “Very. Gabriella said she had seen her and her father playing with purple fire like snowballs.”

“That’s freaky,” he breathed. “I’m so glad we can’t do stuff like that or raise the dead or _move_ stuff with our minds.”

Felicity let out a sharp laugh and shook her head slightly at his words. “Maybe if we were born with the same affinity as them, we could but we weren’t. The other reason why I waited was because I wanted to see her using her powers other than to heavily maintain this place.”

“She speaks her incantations backwards,” Donna interjected as the purple smoke got thicker on the stage, creating a dark curtain that never traveled any further than the edge of the stage like an invisible force was holding it there. “From what I’ve seen, what she’s able to do is so different from what you two can.”

“That’s because she has more power than us, Mom. We have only a fraction what she has and it presents itself differently for us,” Felicity trailed off as she side-eyed the purple smoke. It was totally unnatural. Smoke just doesn’t do that. It _shouldn’t_ do that.

_But illusions do_ , she thought.

“I’m so excited that you guys are here to see this,” Donna gushed. “Zatanna has grown up so much since the last time either of you saw her. She’s a great girl, Percy. Maybe when all is said and done, you can finally ask her out on a date like you’ve been fantasizing since you were fifteen.”

_“Mom!”_ Percy hissed, the apples of his cheeks turning red with embarrassment. “That was ten years ago and it was just a crush. I don’t like Zee that way anymore. She’s just some girl I went to high school with. And don’t you have work to do?” The smoke screen suddenly broke on stage followed by a loud, dramatic _poof_ , drowning out whatever else he said, and a slender figure with long dark hair wearing a black tuxedo jacket with extra long tails over a white corset tucked into a pair of black shorts with fishnets encasing her long legs seemingly appeared out of thin air. Around her neck was a white satin bow and in her hands she held a black top hat and a classic black magician’s wand.

Without looking away from the stage, Donna placed a hand over her son’s mouth. “Shh and watch the show, baby.” He frowned indignantly and removed her hand before relaxing back into the booth and watching Zatanna perform her show.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos, guys!

**Starling City, California**

**Felicity Smoak’s House – August 4, 5:38 AM PST.**

Felicity easily vaulted over the fence that separated her house and the one directly behind it and landed in a low crouch. She paused there as Percy quickly followed her over. The sound of her heartbeat thundering in her ears was the only thing she could hear in the otherwise quiet early morning. She could only hope that after two and a half years her neighbors still kept the same habits on Saturday mornings and they were all still safely tucked in their beds, not getting ready for another day of work.

“What are we waiting for?” Percy hissed at her. She gave him a sharp look and pressed a finger to her lips. He frowned at her but said nothing else.

A minute passed and then another and another but they heard nothing to indicate that they’d been made. Felicity let out a quiet sigh of relief and stood. “Come on,” she whispered. They made their way across the yard until they stood by the back door. Felicity pushed the hood of her leather jacket off her head and unzipped it before reaching into the inner pocket and digging out a set of keys. She flipped through them before finally finding the one she wanted and unlocking the door.

Felicity quickly closed and locked the door behind them as Percy dropped into one of the chairs set around her small kitchen table. He unclipped his katana from around his chest and pulled his goggles from his face, throwing both on the table, before resting his head on the smooth surface.

“Is it safe?” he mumbled into the table, his voice muffled, as she pulled back the curtain of the window over the sink.

“For now,” she said. Felicity walked across her kitchen until she stood next to her brother and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, grab your things. Sal said the cleaning crew had just come by a few days before we got to Vegas, so the guest bedroom should be made up.” Percy made no move to get up so shook him some. “Percy, get up and grab your things. You can sleep upstairs, not here at the table.”

He mumbled something unintelligible, but stood and grabbed his sword and goggles before following her up the stairs. Felicity pushed open the door to the guest bedroom and scanned the room. The curtains were drawn, blocking out the early morning rays, and the closet door was open, revealing the extra blankets and pillows that she kept on the upper shelf. The bed had fresh linens on it and not a single speck of dust could be seen on any surface just as Sal had promised. Satisfied that no one was going to jump out at them, she stepped back from the doorway and let Percy pass.

He dropped his things on the dresser before dropping face first onto the bed, not bothering to change out of his leathers before going to sleep. “Goodnight, Feliss. Or, good morning, since it’s six am. Or whatever.” He curled his arms around one of the pillows and snuggled his head into it, eyes closed. “Forget it – you know what I mean. I’m going to sleep now.”

Felicity gave him a smile he didn’t see and closed the door behind her as she made her way down the hall to her own room. She opened the door and gave it the same sweep as she did Percy’s room before closing it behind her.

Unstrapping her quiver from her back, she placed it on the floor next to the bed within reach if something happened and put her bow on the nightstand. It was folded up until it was just big enough to fit in the palm of her hand. A push of the button and it would be at full size in less than a second, ready for combat. The design was similar to the bow she had made for him, or rather _his_ was similar to _hers_ , a fact that pained her every time she looked at it. But she didn’t regret her decision to base his new bow off of her own because every time she looked at her own bow, it reminded her of the reasons why she and the others had done what they did in Gotham. Reminded her that Oliver was safe from the danger that was Ra’s al Ghul.

She quickly changed out of her leather outfit and into something more comfortable before slipping beneath the cool sheets of her bed. The moment her head hit the pillow she fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

**August 4, 1:13 PM PST.**

Felicity flexed her fingers over the keys before typing in more code.

“So, how do you know they haven’t updated the system down there in the Arrowcave? It’s been a few years, so you never know, Feliss,” Percy asked, eating straight from the box of cereal he had found on top of the refrigerator. Sal had been nice enough to have the house stocked with food after their visit.

She shot him a look that clearly said that she thought he was stupid over the top of the screen and kept typing. A few keystrokes later she was in. “Three years ago I installed tech in my babies that wasn’t released to the public until last month and I made sure that I made it very clear that they were to never mess with them unless it was mission related.” Felicity turned the laptop so that he could see. “And as you can tell, I was able to get past my firewalls in less than two minutes, so they obviously didn’t change anything while I was…you know— _gone._ ”

Percy shrugged and rounded the desk until he stood at her shoulder. “Just wanted to make sure, you know. So, who’ve they been tracking lately? I bet it’s someone big, like the Joker or Scarecrow back in Gotham, since it _is_ Starling,” he mused, peering at the screen.

Her eyes quickly flicked over the screen before pulling up the police files that were flagged and skimming them. A frown pulled at her mouth at the name she saw at the top of the file.

“It looks like they’re going after Laurence Crock, aka Sportsmaster. Says here that he’s been placing explosives all over Starling at all of the major sports arenas and trying to blow them up,” Felicity read, her frown deepening as she scanned the long list of offenses he had been arrested for.

“What’s wrong? Did you know the guy?”

She shook her head. “No, but he was a hockey player for the Starling City Stars. I only know that because Roy had been completely obsessed with him before he disappeared from the sports scene. I wonder what made him turn to a life of crime…” she trailed off.

“Don’t know,” Percy sighed, perching on the edge of the desk. “But he did and now the Arrow is going after him. So where’s Sportsmaster going to hit next?”

Felicity’s fingers flew over the keys as she typed in a few commands and within seconds a map of the city came up with a blinking red light hovering over Papp Stadium. She pointed at the screen. “There.” She typed in a new command and pulled up a list of police reports tagged with Crock’s name. “Looks like he’s been trying to blow them all up during games.”

“Something needs to be done about him,” Percy muttered angrily, shoving away from the desk and pacing the length of Felicity’s small home office. “He’s threatening the lives of a whole bunch of innocent people!”

She nodded in agreement. “I know, but we can’t do anything about that, not without revealing ourselves before we’re ready to. Leave the heroing to Oliver and the others— _for now_ ,” she stressed, seeing that he was gearing up to start arguing with her, “and focus on getting Drew, Auggie, and Gabriella back home.”

“You’re right…you’re right.” He sighed heavily and ran a hand through his long hair as he rocked back on his heels. “While we’re on that topic, you told me that one of Drew’s old friends from his Irish mob days back in Boston – the one you said would know where he was – relocated here to Starling a few years ago. What does he have to do with this?”

Felicity peered at him over the screen of the laptop and shook her head. “Nothing,” she told him. “I need to get into the foundry. If you haven’t noticed, none of my supplies or gear is in the house – it’s all down there. And I want to be able to go there without too much trouble or being seen by the wrong person. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

“So you’re basically saying that you want to tell one of them so that they can help us.”

“Basically.”

His brow furrowed as he stared at her. “And tracking Sportsmaster gives us a chance to talk to the person you want to tell,” he guessed, expression turning sarcastic with his next words. “And – I’m totally going out on a limb here – that person isn’t going to be Oliver Queen, am I right?”

She gave him a thin smile. “That you are, little brother.” Felicity pulled up the map of the city again and turned the computer so that he could see. “Do you see how the stadium is in a gridded area of the city with all of these businesses and apartment buildings around it?” she asked, pointing toward the area she was talking about. “This can work to our advantage if we do it right.”

Percy threw a handful of cereal into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully as he stared at the map. “With all those alleyways, it would be easy to separate one of them if you got them to chase you.”

Felicity grinned. “Exactly.”

* * *

**Papp Stadium – August 4, 7:28 PM PST.**

As far as she could tell, every seat in Papp Stadium was filled with avid baseball fans if the constant drone of voices and cheers was any indication. The Starling City Rockets were playing the Gotham Knights and it was obvious that the home team had more supporters here tonight than the visitors. They all sounded so happy, completely oblivious to what was going to happen soon. She could only hope they stayed that way.

“What’s the score?”

Felicity blinked and glanced at the scoreboard. “Three-zero, Rockets.”

She heard Percy’s groan of frustration through the comm link in her ear. “C’mon, Gotham, you can do better than that!”

“They’re only in the third inning so they can still make it up,” she reassured. Four men wearing hockey masks suddenly stepped out of the stands, catching her eye. One was blonde and obviously the leader from the way he kept gesturing at the other three. It had to be Crock.

Percy snorted. “Yeah, right. The Knights haven’t won a game in over ten years.”

She watched as they pulled out what looked like metal hockey sticks and a bag of hockey pucks to match from underneath the vacant seats a few rows up before disappearing through the exit. “Then why are you even supporting them if you’re so sure they’re going to lose? For all you know they could win tonight.”

“It’s the principle of the matter, Felicity. While I was going to Gotham University I learned to love the city and all that it had to offer— _despite all of its corruptness_ ,” he grumbled under his breath before continuing at normal volume, “—And that includes the Knights. Even if they completely suck ass all of the time.”

“I’ve spotted Sportsmaster.” He fell silent at her words. “I’ll let you know if something’s gone wrong,” Felicity told him before temporarily cutting communications between them and dropping down from the ledge she was perched on. She silently landed in crouch in a largely unpopulated area of the stands with the closest person to her five rows away. Quickly glancing around to make sure no one saw her, she took off down the exit, dodging the occasional security guard, and made her way to the locker rooms. The sounds of fighting touched her ears long before she got there, causing her to slow to a stop.

Felicity silently crept down the hall until she stood in the open doorway and peered in. The Arrow had his back to her single handedly fighting off the four men on his own while Arsenal dealt with the bomb. She watched as Sportsmaster and his minions dumped the bag of hockey pucks on the floor and start to hit them, sending them flying through the air and forcing the Arrow to dive and take cover.

Arsenal glanced over his shoulder toward his mentor and Felicity saw the slightest hesitation on his face, like he wanted to step in and help, before hardening in resolve. He turned back and continued to diffuse the bomb without another backward glance.

The Arrow drew his bow and shot a trick arrow at one of the masked men. A cable exploded from the tip of the arrowhead and wrapped around him, forcing him down to the ground in a tangled heap. Felicity’s gaze flicked up just in time to see Sportsmaster drop his hockey stick and barrel toward the exit while the Arrow was preoccupied with his other two henchmen. She backed away from the doorway and scanned the hallway. A quick sweep told her that she didn’t have time to make it back the way she came. There was only one place to go and that was up.

 _What the hell_ , she sighed to herself. Felicity shouldered her bow and planted her foot firmly on the wall. Using that momentum she lifted her body off the ground and quickly spread her arms and legs as she held her body close near the ceiling.

She watched as Sportsmaster fled from the locker room, leaving his men to deal with the Emerald Archer. It seemed that was no honor even among criminals.

After she was sure he was long gone, Felicity dropped back down to the ground. But her relief was short lived as one of Sportsmaster’s men came running out. Letting out a silent sigh of exasperation, she sidestepped the man before he could spot her and stayed out of his periphery as he ran off after his boss.

“Got it,” Arsenal shouted suddenly.

Felicity stepped back into the doorway just in time to see him pull the last wire of the bomb and fully disconnect it while the Arrow was still preoccupied with the last henchman. Before he could turn, Felicity quickly loaded her bow and pulled back on the bowstring before releasing. A split-second later the arrow imbedded itself in the wall less than an inch away from his head.

Arsenal tensed before snapping around to look for the shooter and spotted her standing there. The corners of her mouth ticked up into a taunting smile as she gave him a slight wave and took off into a sprint out of the stadium.

**August 4, 9:13 PM PST.**

Arsenal quickly took aim and drew his arm back before letting the arrow fly toward its intended target.

The figure twisted at the last second mid-sprint and caught the arrow before it struck them in the back. He watched as the person pushed the hood of her leather jacket back to reveal a woman with long brown hair. She wore a mask that concealed her eyes behind dark lenses and her lips, one side ticked up into a smirk, were painted a bright fuchsia pink, the only splash of color other than the black of her entire outfit. Even the quiver strapped to her back and the compound bow grasped tightly in her other hand were black.

She shook her head and waved the red arrow in her grasp almost tauntingly. “This is mine now, Arsenal,” she teased before tucking it into her quiver and taking off into a sprint toward the end of the alley.

He growled angrily under his breath and took off after the woman. _Ha_ , he laughed to himself as she ran toward the dead end, _I’ve got you now, bitch._

But Arsenal skidded to a halt and watched in shock as the woman kept running toward the wall. She leapt at the last second midstride and grabbed hold of the end of the fire escape ladder. Lithely, she swung her body up the side of the fire escape and climbed until she hit the roof and was out of sight within seconds.

Arsenal stood beneath the ladder and stared slackjawwed. It was impossible. No one could make a jump like that and grab onto the last rung. The ladder had been pulled all the way up and that was at least ten feet.

It was impossible.

But he had just seen that woman do it.

He shook his head and focused back on pursuing her. Without a second thought, he drew one of his trick arrows, aimed high, and let it fly. The grappling arrow locked onto the roof of the building next to him and after a quick tug of the cable, Arsenal pressed a button and he was moving skyward.

After a quick scan of the rooftops, he spotted the mysterious female archer moving north out of the Glades. Without a second thought he took off after her, jumping from rooftop to rooftop trying to catch up with her but she moved fast.

There was a crackling in his ear followed by the rough voice of the Arrow. “Arsenal. Where are you?”

“Heading north. I’m pursuing a lead on Sportsmaster,” he reported just as the woman dropped down and out of sight over the ledge of one of the buildings ahead.

There was a pause before the Arrow spoke again. “Do you need backup?” he questioned.

Arsenal shook his head as he reached the same ledge as the woman. “No,” he responded. His answer seemed to satisfy his partner because he didn’t say anything more after that.

Movement below him caught his eye and Arsenal jumped onto the fire escape of the apartment building adjacent to him. He quickly made his way down to the ground and loaded his bow as he scanned the alleyway between the two buildings. Slowly, he walked toward the darkest part of the alley. The sudden sound of a can kicked across the ground caused him to pull his arm back and pivot on the spot.

A small gray cat with a blue collar around its neck slinked out from behind the dumpster. It meowed and stared pitifully up at Arsenal with wide yellow eyes.

He frowned and lowered his arm, placing the arrow back into his quiver. “What are you doing out here all by yourself?” he asked quietly, crouching low to scratch behind its ears. The cat purred and Arsenal smiled to himself.

“I should be the one asking that, Arsenal.” He jumped to his feet at the sound of the voice and reached back to grab an arrow.

The young man loaded his bow and scanned the darkness before him. A glint of metal caught his eye and he let the arrow fly. The blade of a sword slashed out in the darkness and easily deflected the arrow with a _ping_ , making it bounce off and hit the ground.

“Show yourself,” he demanded.

A moment later the woman stepped out of the shadows followed by another hooded figure, this one armed with what looked like a samurai sword. The woman held her hand out as if to caution the second figure. A slow smile curved at her lips until it turned into a full blown grin. She turned to the person with her and at the slight dip of her chin the figure sheathed the sword on his back and pushed their hood away from their face to reveal a man with the same dark hair as the woman wearing a pair of high-tech goggles concealing his eyes.

“Who are you?”

The woman stepped forward, smile still in place, and pulled her mask away to reveal blue eyes. “You already know the answer to that question, Roy.”

Roy stumbled backward as he stared at her in shock. He silently mouthed her name, unable to say it aloud.

“I’m surprised you were so keen on following me. Did you really think I had something to do with Laurence Crock and his latest attempt at blowing up one of Starling’s sports arenas?” she continued.

“Y-y-you, you’re supposed to be dead,” he stuttered out, shakily pointing a finger in her direction. “You jumped off of Wayne Tower.”

She sighed softly and crossed her arms. “I _was_ dead.”

His brow furrowed in confusion as he continued to stare at her. “I don’t understand.”

“Then let us explain.”

* * *

**The Foundry – August 5, 12:07 AM PST.**

Oliver angrily threw a hard jab at Diggle, who quickly blocked and countered with a hit of his own.

“Calm down, Oliver,” Digg ordered, holding the younger man in a tight headlock. “Roy’s fine. If he needed backup he would have called for us through his comm link.”

The former castaway clenched his jaw and flipped Digg hard onto his back down on the training mat below them before stalking off to spar with the training dummy. “I _know_ that, Diggle,” he growled. “But I can’t afford to lose another member of this team.”

The day that Roy had burst into his office was the day that his world as he knew it ended. The news that she was dead had rocked him to his core and skewed his perception. He thought he knew her, _all_ of her, but it turned out that he didn’t.

He asked himself everyday what could have possibly gone wrong in her life that she had to take matters into her own hands and take her own life the way she did.

Hours after the news of the five people who had jumped off Wayne Tower owned by the famous billionaire Bruce Wayne in Gotham City had hit, it spread like wildfire and became national news. And once people found out that one of the jumpers was the executive assistant of Oliver Queen, reporters and journalists from all over the country had swarmed Starling City asking for statements and interviews from the CEO of Queen Consolidated. But he virtually became a recluse in the wake of the news and was unable to be reached for comment.

Then came the video.

Some person with a Smartphone that had been standing outside Wayne Tower the day his world ended had uploaded a video of those five people jumping.

It happened so fast, but to Oliver it was a lifetime.

In the video those five people stepped off the ledge all at the same moment and they plummeted to the ground like speeding bullets. Their fall had lasted only minutes before they hit the sidewalk. Screams had erupted in the background followed by panic and the last semblances of Oliver’s life had shattered.

In the months afterward he was unresponsive. He went to work at QC during the day, handled the club in the late afternoons, and went out as the Arrow at night. But when spoken to directly he gave one to two syllable responses and was rarely seen out in public unless his presence was absolutely necessary. Even then he would make his mandatory appearance and then provide an excuse to slip out almost as soon as he had arrived.

Roy had taken it upon himself to become his executive assistant after he had scared away the first five that had filled the position. The kid didn’t know what he was doing, but he learned fast, over time learning to anticipate Oliver’s needs and wants before he was asked to do something.

He wasn’t as good as her, but he would do.

And if he didn’t come back soon, Oliver was going to assume the worst.

Oliver paused his abuse of the training dummy at the sound of the security door unlocking and watched as Roy rushed down the stairs.

“Sorry,” he rushed out, unclipping his quiver from his back. Roy turned so he was facing away from him and Digg as he changed out of his gear. “I chased the guy down for almost an hour before he tricked me and had me backed into a corner.”

His jaw ticked angrily as he glared at the back of Roy’s head. “Did you at least stop him?” he ground out through clenched teeth.

Roy paused as he put his bow back into the case and turned slightly to look over his shoulder, not quite meeting their eyes. “No,” he said after a moment. “He got away.”

“Why didn’t you check in, Roy?”

The younger man froze as he pulled a fresh t-shirt over his head and avoided meeting his gaze. “My comm broke in the fight,” he mumbled.

Oliver stalked forward and Digg was suddenly there between them. “That’s a lie – your comm was turned off. Tell me the truth. What were you really doing?”

Roy quickly shook his head as he met Oliver’s hard glare head on. “It doesn’t matter, Oliver. I saw something and it freaked me out. Let’s leave it at that.”

* * *

**Starling City Police Department – August 5, 12:25 AM PST.**

Felicity sat on the ledge of the roof and stared off into the night, listening to the familiar sounds of the city. She removed her mask, placing it down on the ledge next to her as Percy settled down on her other side.

“Can we _really_ trust him not to say anything? I got the impression that if he was pressed hard enough, he’ll sing like a canary,” he asked after a moment, pushing his goggles up to rest on the top of his head.

She sighed and turned to face her brother. “We can trust Roy, Percy. No matter how hard Oliver will try to get him to say something he won’t. From what he told us, it sounds like even if he did tell Oliver, he wouldn’t believe him anyway.”

Percy flipped the small knife in his hand over and over again as he stared at her. “He’s going to react negatively when he learns the truth, I hope you know that,” he warned. “There’s no way he’ll react the same way.”

The corners of Felicity’s mouth tightened and her shoulders stiffened. “I’m prepared for the fallout.”

“You should have just told him, Felicity, damn the consequences.”

“I already got the same speech from Love before we left for London,” she snapped. “I don’t need to hear it again. Let’s just get everyone home before thinking about any of that.”

He held his hands up, palms facing her. “Fine, fine,” he sighed, “Just know that I have _faith_. Faith that everything is going to be okay. You’ll finally get your happy ending after all of the sacrifices that you’ve had to make.”

Felicity nodded and gave him a small smile. She hoped that he was right.

After some time she stood, placing her mask back over her eyes. “Come on,” she sighed, “let’s go home and get some rest.”

Her brother nodded and put his goggles back in place before getting to his feet. “It’s funny, we’re home, but at the same time we’re really not,” he mused on a yawn. Felicity nodded. Once they found the others, then they could really say that they were home again.

Felicity suddenly tensed and grabbed Percy’s wrist before he could turn. He met her gaze and tilted his head back slightly, indicating behind them. She dipped her head once in confirmation. They weren’t alone anymore.

“Slowly turn around and I’ll consider not hurting you,” a voice ordered. They did as they were told and came face to face with a masked blonde woman wearing a cropped leather jacket. She had a thin, metal bō staff clutched tightly in her hand at the ready.

A slow smile crept its way onto Felicity’s face as she took in the newcomer. “Black Canary.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Starling City Police Department – August 5, 12:36 AM PST.**

Felicity’s smile softened as she took in Black Canary. Her once caramel brown hair was bleached blond now and the soft curves that she had were hardened now with lean, toned muscle from extensive training. Beneath her leather jacket she wore a black sleeveless high collared body suit with fingerless gloves on her hands and leather combat boots that went up to her knees on her feet. A thick belt wrapped around her waist completed the look. “She’d be proud of you if she could see you right now,” she told her.

Canary’s gaze narrowed as she looked between the two siblings. “Who?” she spit out, a gloved hand tightening almost unperceptively around the shaft of her staff.

“Ta-er al-Sahfer—your sister,” Felicity answered, noting how a twinge of pain and anger flashed across Canary’s features before hardening to a mask of indifference. _Interesting_ , she thought. _Maybe she knows the truth then…_

“How do you know that name? Are you a part of the League of Assassins?”

Percy scoffed from beside her and shook his head. “Definitely not. Who in their right mind would want to be a part of that eco-terrorist group?” He crossed his arms across his chest and snorted. “Most of them are fucking crazy psychopaths. Not that your sister was one—a psychopath, I mean,” he added upon catching the looks on both his sister’s and Canary’s faces. “I’m going to stop talking now.”

Felicity shot him a look of disbelief before turning back to Canary. “We’re going about this the wrong way. We know you, but you don’t know us. I’m Sacrifice and this is Faith,” she said. “And we’re not members of the League.”

“Then how did you know my sister?” Canary demanded, advancing on her. “How did you know Sara?”

“Sara was my friend. I only knew her for a short time, but she became one of the closest people in my life. Her death was tragic and full of treachery. There was no way she could have escaped what had been done to her,” she murmured softly as the memory of that day came rushing back.

Canary’s gaze narrowed to slits as she stared at Felicity, suddenly suspicious. “What are you talking about? Her death was an accident.”

“She died in my arms, Laurel,” she whispered. “I held her in my arms as she died a slow, painful death—and there was nothing I could do to stop it from happening. The only thing I could do was hold her and tell her that she was going to be okay when really we both knew that I was lying.” Her gloved fingers clenched tightly into fists at her sides, the anger and pain seizing her as the image of Sara’s lifeless body flashed unbidden before her eyes. A hand came up to rest on her shoulder and squeezed lightly. She tensed at the sudden contact, not expecting it, before relaxing and shooting Percy a grateful look.

“No, that’s not true. Sara was on a mission for the League in Bangkok. There was a gas leak and the building exploded. She got trapped inside and couldn’t get out!” she yelled, voice raising with every word as she stormed across the roof.

Percy grabbed her by the arm and started to tug insistently as Laurel advanced but Felicity stood her ground. “Sacrifice, move!” he hissed. But Felicity just brushed him off, pushing him back a few feet just as Laurel struck out with her bō staff.

Felicity twisted just before Laurel could complete the hit and grabbed the end of the staff with both hands. She drew back, forcing Laurel forward, before jabbing outward. Laurel gasped and stumbled backward as Felicity tore the staff from her grasp. She spun it in her hands, got a good grip, and swept Laurel’s legs out from underneath her with the end of the metal pole.

“Sara’s last words were for you and your father, Laurel,” she told her, lightly pressing the end of the staff to her throat. “She told me to tell you that she loved you, that she wished she could have spent more time with you, despite how angry you were with one another.” Felicity’s expression hardened and turned grim. “Your sister’s death was not an accident.”

Anger flashed in Laurel’s eyes behind her mask. “They found her body half burned to a crisp. They said it was an accident!”

“And who exactly told you this?” Felicity asked.

“Nyssa!” she snapped. “Nyssa came here and told us after her father had told her. She brought Sara’s body with her so that she could be buried in her grave.”

Felicity snorted derisively and shook her head. Of course her father told her it was an accident. “She told you a lie that she believed to be the truth. There are two people responsible for her death – one actually killed her and the other covered it up.”

“You’re lying,” Laurel spit, glaring up at her.

The corners of her mouth turned down as she stared down at her. “Why would I lie about something like this?” Felicity pulled back and dropped the staff to the ground at her feet. “I can tell that some part of you didn’t believe Nyssa’s story because otherwise you wouldn’t have felt the need to take on her mantel and become Black Canary, Laurel. When you’re ready for the truth, tell Arsenal that you want to meet with me.”

She turned to Percy. “Come on,” she told him. He nodded and followed her over the ledge of the building. Once they hit the ground they took off running across the city, sticking close to the shadows and alleyways, only stopping for the occasional car or random person before they could be spotted.

“Was that part of the plan back there?” Percy suddenly asked as they slid into the car. “Telling her about her sister?”

Felicity shook her head as she started the engine. “No…but it is now,” she sighed.

* * *

**The Foundry – August 5, 1:16 AM PST.**

Oliver paused from sharpening the arrowhead in his hands and turned slightly in the direction of the stairs at the sound of the security door unlocking followed by feet pounding down the metal stairs.

“Ollie!”

He frowned at the slight hitch in her voice and dropped the arrowhead onto the workbench before moving to meet her. “Laurel?” he asked, taking in her pale face and the slightly shell-shocked expression there. “What’s wrong?”

Laurel ripped her mask from her face and scrubbed her hands over her eyes. “Where do I start?” She ran a hand through her hair before focusing back on Oliver. “I had just dropped off a criminal with Dad when I saw these two people sitting on top of the building. It was a man and a woman. Both were wearing masks, dressed head to toe in black leather outfits. The man, he looked like he was carrying every knife imaginable, and the woman was carrying a pretty fancy bow that kind of looked like yours.”

Her brow furrowed and she stared up at him. “The woman—she knew Sara, Ollie.”

Oliver tensed at her words. “What?” he bit out.

“She called Sara by her League name – Ta-er al-Sahfer. And then she claimed that her death wasn’t an accident,” Laurel whispered painfully, her eyes taking on a faraway look like she was elsewhere.

“Do you think she was telling the truth, Laurel?”

She shrugged helplessly, tears beginning to pool in her green eyes. “I don’t know, Ollie.” Her hand reached up to rub the column of her throat. “Everything I thought I knew about her death was torn to shreds and now I don’t know what to think anymore.”

He stared at the broken woman who had taken on her sister’s secret identity as a way to cope, to heal, to feel closer to her again. There was nothing he could tell her that would make all of this okay again. But he knew better than to help her with this. Laurel would eventually learn the truth about this on her own, and if she wanted to tell him, he’d be there to listen when she was ready.

* * *

**Queen Consolidated – August 7, 10:13 AM PST.**

The shrill ringing of the phone in his ear shook Roy from his single-minded focus on the spreadsheet in front of him. His eyes shot across the office to glance at the meeting going on in the conference room before answering the call. “Mr. Queen’s office, this is Roy speaking. How may I help you?” He waited a beat as the other person spoke. “I'm sorry, Mr. Kord, but Mr. Queen is currently in a meeting.” Roy glanced at the time in the corner of his computer monitor. “But I’ll be sure to have him call you afterwards, maybe around ten-forty-five…Yes. Okay, then. I'll be sure to tell him. Have a good day, Mr. Kord. Good-bye.” He pressed the button on the side of the Bluetooth in his ear to disconnect the call as he added the message to the notepad app on the tablet.

Roy huffed a sigh and turned back to the spreadsheet the R&D department sent up. He was sick and tired of this job. Being Oliver Queen’s executive assistant and answering his phones, managing his schedule, and making sure that he knew what was going on was a complete pain in the ass. Especially when reporters and journalists kept calling and trying to get meetings with him about his former EA, his love life, or some other stupid bullshit. But since Oliver ran off all the replacements with his high demands and overall asshole behavior, someone had to step in and take over before he ran the company into the ground after all of that hard work to get it back.

He had no clue how Felicity was able to stand doing this job but he had to give her mad props.

The elevator dinged a few minutes later followed by the clicking of high heels coming toward his desk. Roy spared a glance through the glass surface and saw a pair of vibrant blue high heels.

“Mr. Queen is currently in a meeting, but if you have an appointment, you're welcome to wait,” he told the woman without looking away from the screen as he continued to make notes. “If you don't have one I can schedule you in after his one o’clock tomorrow. But if you’re another one of those tabloid reporters, I'm going to have to kindly ask you to leave the premises before I call security to escort you from the building.”

“Well then it's a good thing I'm not here to see Oliver, Roy,” the woman said laughing slightly.

His hand stilled over the keyboard of the tablet and he froze before slowly turning to look up at the woman. Roy balked slightly before leaning forward in his seat and squinting at her. “Felicity?”

The woman smiled. “Hello, Roy.”

He sucked in a sharp breath and shot up from his chair. His hand shot out to wrap around her wrist and he dragged her across the office until they stood near the floor to ceiling glass windows.

Felicity shook him off and reached up to pat her curly red hair with one hand while the other smoothed down the skirt of her peach dress. “Be careful. You almost made my wig come flying off,” she scolded softly.

Roy stared at her in disbelief. “Me be careful? You’re the one who should be careful!” he hissed. “What if somebody recognized you? What if _Oliver_ recognized you?”

“Why do you think I’m dressed like this, Roy?” she asked, sweeping a hand down the length of her body. “Do you think that I would wear a wig if I had to? No one is going to recognize me looking like this.”

He sputtered and threw his hands up in the air. “But I recognized you! By the sound of your voice!”

The corner of her brightly colored lips turned upward into a smirk. “Exactly.”

“What the hell do you mean _exactly_?” he hissed mimicking her.

“Roy, do you know what the first thing you forget about a person is?” She crossed her arms and leaned back against the window as he shook his head no. “Their voice, the first you thing you forget is the sound of their voice. Why do you think I wasn’t using a modulator the other night?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know—I didn’t even notice.” Roy glanced over his shoulder towards the conference room at Oliver to make sure the man hadn’t noticed them standing there. “What are you doing here?”

She glanced around the office and lowered her voice. “I need you to do something for me,” she told him.

“Depends,” he drawled, eyeing her, “What is it?”

Felicity glanced over his shoulder before focusing back on him. “Keep Oliver and John out of the foundry Friday night,” she murmured softly.

Eyebrows shooting up his forehead, Roy stared at her in shock. “How the hell am I supposed to do that? You know him, he’s going to get suspicious,” he hissed back.

“What if I helped you guys catch Sportsmaster?” she offered without skipping a beat, almost as if she had been anticipating his response. “Percy and I have been tracking him and we think we have a lock on his hideout.”

Roy stared at her through narrowed eyes. “We’ve spent two weeks looking for the guy and you’re back for two _days_ and you already found him?” He threw his arms up and made some kind of wild hand gestures at Felicity. “What the hell!” he sputtered. “How? Just— _how_?”

She shrugged. “It’s what we do best other than protect the innocent, Roy. I just spent two months tracking and following an arsonist across Eastern Europe. Percy and I were always just a couple hours behind him. There were even a couple times where we were able to pin him down before he slipped away again.” Felicity’s eyes darted passed Roy’s shoulder before focusing back on his face with a sudden urgency. “Quick—Oliver’s meeting is wrapping up. I’ll tell you where Sportsmaster is hiding if you say you’ll do it.”

He weighed his options. On the one hand, if he did what Felicity’s asking him to do, he would get the info he needs to catch a crazy former pro-hockey player before he tried to kill more people. But on the other hand, if he did do what she’s asking, then he would have to face Oliver’s suspicion and no doubt scary-ass interrogation sessions masked as simply asking him about his day.

“Fine, I’ll do it, but if it backfires on somebody I reserve the right to tell you I told you so.”

**August 7, 10:52 AM PST.**

Oliver plastered on a congenial smile as he shook hands with the head of the Applied Sciences Department and watched as each person quickly gathered their papers and documents and filed out of the conference room. Once they were all gone, he dropped the smile and gathered up his own paperwork before slowly making his way out of the room himself. The sound of voices speaking in low tones caught his attention and he paused in the doorway. He did a quick sweep of the reception area and spotted Roy standing by the windows with a redheaded woman.

He watched as the woman reached into the purse on her shoulder and pulled out a manila envelope. She said something to Roy that prompted him to nod before handing the envelope to him. They shared a few more words and Oliver’s eyebrows flew up his forehead as Roy suddenly launched himself at her and wrapped his arms tight around her shoulders in a hug. The woman stiffened at the sudden contact but returned the hug after a second of hesitation.

Curious, but equally suspicious, Oliver slowly made his way toward them, stopping once he was directly behind Roy. He cleared his throat to announce his presence and chuckled under his breath as the younger man jumped, startled.

“Oliver!”

The woman giggled softly, the sound vaguely familiar to Oliver like it had haunted him in his dreams, drawing his gaze to her face. Pouty lips painted a soft pink were spread into a wide smile and mirth danced in her light blue eyes. He stared at her perhaps a beat too long before forcing himself to turn back to Roy.

“Do you mind introducing me to your friend, Roy?” he asked, raising a brow at him.

Roy’s gaze flicked between him and the woman twice, mouth agape as he tried to come up with an answer. “Um, this is…erm,” he stuttered before giving the woman a pointed look.

She returned his gaze with an equally pointed look before turning to Oliver with a smile. “Hi, I’m Faye Sanders.” Her smile widened slightly and the light in her eyes danced with humor at some private joke that she was only privy to. “And I know who you are—you’re Mr. Queen.”

Oliver swallowed as a sense of _déjà vu_ washed over him at her words. He blinked and regained his composure before nodding once and forcing a smile. “Yes, yes I am,” he agreed, staring at her. “How do you know Roy, Miss Sanders?”

“Well, I’m more of a friend of a friend, Mr. Queen,” she told him, glancing at Roy. “I just came to pass a message onto Roy and cajole him into doing a favor for that friend since she couldn’t come to ask him herself, unfortunately.” A buzzing sound came from her purse and she reached in to pull out her phone. After checking the text message, she returned the phone to her purse and reached out to squeeze Roy’s upper arm. “I have to go, but thank you,” she told him. He nodded as they shared a significant look that Oliver didn’t understand before returning to his desk and dropping the envelope into his messenger bag.

The woman—Faye—turned to him next and gave him a soft smile that seemed just a little sad. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Queen.”

He nodded. “You too, Miss Sanders,” he returned. She smiled at him again before leaving, throwing one last goodbye to Roy over her shoulder.

* * *

**The Claddagh – August 7, 12:25 PM PST.**

Felicity unclipped her seatbelt and glanced at Percy. He was leaning across the dash, nose almost pressed against the windshield, as he looked at the club across the street from where they were parked.

“This doesn’t look like the kind of place the Irish mob would be using as a front, Feliss,” he said to her.

“Appearances can be deceiving,” she murmured, half listening to him as she watched a black Mercedes pull up in front of the club. The driver stepped out a moment later and walked around to the sidewalk and opened the back door on the passenger side. A man who looked to be no older than thirty, maybe a couple years younger, stepped out of the car to stand beside the driver. He had a head full of vibrant red hair that was more of a burnt orange color, cut short at the sides and long on top, fashioned into some sort of quaff. A couple days of scruff a few shades darker covered his cheeks and chin. She watched as he brushed off and straightened his dark gray suit and pulled the dark shades from his face. He exchanged a few words with the driver before pushing his way into the club. Moments later the Mercedes pulled away from the curb and drove passed them.

Felicity cursed under her breath and angrily ripped the wig from her head, letting her dark brown hair tumble down her back. She opened her mouth to say something, but shook her head and threw the wig onto the small, nonexistent back seat of her brother’s Corvette.

From beside her, Percy let out a long sigh. “Judging by your reaction just now, the dude that just walked into the club was Sean Malley, wasn’t it?” She nodded stiffly and drummed her fingers against the steering wheel in an angry tattoo. “Who exactly is he? You were vague this morning on the drive to Queen Consolidated.”

She thought back to the day she had asked Drew what made him choose to become Hope. “Remember how Drew told us that he used to be caught up in some really bad shit back when he was younger, that he wasn’t always a good person, before he met Gabriella and became Hope?” she asked. At his slow nod, she continued. “Well, whether you want to believe it or not, he was a member of the Irish mob back in Boston. He told me that after he witnessed his older brothers beat some kid until he was half dead just because he had looked at them the wrong way, he got the hell away from that life and moved to Gotham.” Felicity held up two fingers. “Drew only kept in contact with two people from Boston over the years: his little sister Mary and his best friend Sean.”

Percy stared at her skeptically. “And you think that Sean Malley – Drew’s best friend – the head of the Starling chapter of the Irish mob – will know where he is.” It was more of a statement and less of a question.

She nodded once. “Yes. If anybody knows where the hell Andrew O’Sullivan is, it’s him.”

“Why would he even tell anyone where he was going – we didn’t?”

“We didn’t tell anyone because we were together – we had each other – and we caused a lot of trouble—enough for Bruce and the rest of them to track us down. Drew was alone in Ireland and because of whatever or whoever happened to drive him from the country, he would need somebody who would be able to find him just in case,” she explained, glancing at her brother. “And I’m willing to bet Auggie did the same thing—that’s why we’re going to Central City next.”

They fell silent after that and Felicity slumped lower in her seat, feeling the last of her anger and irritation drain away. This wasn’t going to work. She wasn’t going to be able to go in with him in the club now. Her mind swam with possible ways to get in and out of the club without being seen by Malley, but didn’t like any of the plans she came up with. Each one allowed for enough time to slip in and install the software for them to have remote access to the security cameras, but not enough for her to learn the layout of the club without getting caught.

The only thing left to do was to come back early tomorrow morning and go in then.

She sighed softly to herself, resigned, and clipped the seatbelt back in place before starting the engine. The Corvette roared to life and she pulled away from the curb, turning in the direction of her house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos, guys! I'm glad you're liking it so far and I'd love to hear what you think :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Sportsmaster’s Hideout, the Glades – August 9, 8:17 PM PST.**

Felicity crouched low on the rooftop of the building across from the abandoned one that Sportsmaster had been using as a base. She didn’t know what she was doing here, but something had drawn her there, despite Roy’s reassurances that he and Oliver wouldn’t need any backup.

Maybe it was because she was worried.

She had done a more thorough read through the police reports on Sportsmaster’s crimes and the accompanying forensic reports detailing the bombs he had been using. Over time his bombs had gotten smaller and more sophisticated. The one that had been planted in the locker room at Papp Stadium had been no bigger than a football, but according to the report, it said that it had enough explosives to destroy the entire stadium and then some.

And then there was the fact that Sportsmaster and his men had all of those hockey pucks. Sure, in the scheme of things it made sense for him to be using them in the crime. He was a former hockey player who had turned into one of those horrible themed criminals that had started popping up in recent years. But she thought back to the to the way Sportsmaster had all but ran out of the locker room in a fit of panic after tossing his hockey stick. It was like he had been expecting those pucks to do something and once he realized that nothing had happened – that nothing was _going_ to happen – he ran.

If Sportsmaster was capable of making a bomb the size of a football, then he was definitely capable of making an explosive out of a hockey puck and eventually getting it to work.

And she really hoped that he hadn’t gotten it to work.

With a sigh, Felicity readjusted the hood of her jacket and settled in to wait, hand tightly clutched around her EMP emitter.

**August 9, 9:03 PM PST.**

“Lawrence Crock, you have failed this city!”

The ex-hockey player gave a humorless laugh, shoving his mask down over his face as his men scrambled to their feet at the sight of the Arrow and Arsenal. “That’s where you're wrong, archer,” Crock spit out, grabbing the hockey stick lying on the table beside him. “This city has failed me, not the other way around!” And without warning, Crock and his men started to send their black pucks flying through the air.

Oliver huffed under his breath, remembering this little routine from Papp Stadium, and drew back his arm before firing off an arrow. The arrow hit the shaft of Crock’s hockey stick, forcing him to drop it, but not before Roy let out a sharp cry from beside him and the sudden heat assaulted him. One second he was firmly standing on the ground and the next he was being thrown backwards through the air. The sound of an explosion assaulted his ears and he quickly rolled across the floor to take cover just as another hockey puck exploded near him.

“How the hell are we supposed to take them out now?” Roy yelled to him.

He growled under his breath and nocked another arrow. He was sick and tired of Lawrence Crock and his explosives. They had been trying to put him back behind bars for too long and tonight was the night that was going to happen.

Oliver signaled Roy, prompting him to nock an arrow of his own. Simultaneously, they stood from their crouched positions behind the debris and fired. Cables exploded from the arrowheads and tightly wrapped around two of Crock’s men, forcing them to drop to the ground in a tangled heap. But taking two down still didn’t even the odds. There was still three of them against him and Roy and they had the explosives Crock had made on their side to make the situation even worse.

The sound of glass breaking caught Oliver’s attention and he looked up just in time to see a slim figure swing lithely through the broken window at the back of the building and onto the catwalk above the fray. The figure was dressed all in black, making him appear to look like a phantom shadow, and he had his hood pulled up to conceal his face from view. A bow was clutched tightly in one hand. The other was held loosely by his side and Oliver saw a small device clutched in that hand.

“Hey, Arrow!” Crock yelled out. “I'd like to see you diffuse this!” And he sent another hockey puck flying in Oliver’s direction. He threw his hands up to cover his head and waited for the explosion.

But it never came. Instead the puck lamely fell at Oliver’s feet and did nothing.

Crock and his remaining men stared in shock and confusion at their hockey pucks as the mysterious figure dropped down from the catwalk behind them. And as soon as his feet met the ground, the figure fired an arrow into Crock’s shoulder, forcing a sharp cry of pain from between his lips. The archer quickly advanced with confident strides and slammed the arm of his compound bow against the backs of Crock’s legs, sending him crashing to the ground with another scream. Without pause the figure struck out with the bow again, hitting the henchman who had rushed forward across the side of his head, while following this with two solid blows to the face and roughly shoving him down to the ground. Crock’s remaining henchman came up behind the archer, hockey stick raised. The archer shifted infinitesimally and just as the stick came down to bash him over the head, he pivoted at the last possible moment and swept his attacker’s legs out from underneath him, sending him crashing to the ground with a grunt.

Oliver watched as the archer turned to face him and Roy. A gloved hand reached up to push back the hood and he felt the chill of shock run through him as he realized the archer was actually a woman rather than the man he had mistaken her for.

Full lips painted a bright pink pulled up into a small smile, eyes concealed by a mask with dark lenses. “You’re welcome.”

And just as suddenly as she appeared, she was gone.

* * *

**The Foundry – August 10, 7:58 PM PST.**

Roy anxiously glanced at his watch, hyper aware of the sounds of grunts and metal banging on metal as Oliver and Digg trained with the eskrima sticks. He was sitting with his back ramrod straight in front of the bank of computers facing away from them. Any minute now Felicity was going to come through the door and shit was going to go down, he was sure of it.

After last night’s encounter with her, Oliver was hell-bent on figuring out the identity of the “female archer” and her agenda in Starling. As soon as they had gotten back, he had started setting up searches for any sightings and background info that they could dig up. At this point Roy was pretty sure his mentor’s main reason for looking into her was to see if she was either another crazy lunatic like Carrie Cutter with a love for a specific type of arrow of the green leather wearing variety or was some kind of vigilante trying to follow in the footsteps of the city’s first one.

But Roy knew better though.

He knew the truth.

He knew every gruesome detail and fact. He knew what her agenda was and he couldn't say a word about any of it. Not yet anyway.

If he did say something no one would believe him anyway. They’d call him crazy and chalk it up to his mind still trying to cope with the loss after all these years. He probably wouldn't believe it himself if he didn't see the truth with his own two eyes.

The sound of the security door unlocking followed by voices and boots clanging on the metal stairs caused the foundry to go silent. Roy was pretty sure someone was going to die tonight, or at the very least get seriously pulverized, and he was willing to bet that that person was going to be him.

“Roy…” He internally cringed at the sound of her voice and willed the floor to open up and swallow him whole. “I thought you said you would try, Roy.”

Abruptly spinning the chair around to face her, he stood, throwing his hands up in front of him. “I _did_ try!” he stressed. “I tossed out every idea that I could pull out of my ass and nothing short of physically throwing them out of the foundry was going to work. I _told_ you this was going to backfire!”

Oliver’s frown deepened as he stared the intruders down where they stood at the bottom of the stairs. There were two of them, a man and a woman, just as Laurel had described. It was hard to gauge their ages, but it seemed that the man was younger than the woman. He quickly scanned them for weapons and noticed that both were dressed in similar outfits in head to toe black.

The man wore a leather jacket covered in zippers with the hood pulled up over his head. A katana was strapped to his back, a set of throwing knives adorned the gauntlets on both his forearms, and on one leg was a very large and no doubt very sharp combat knife. He wore some type of durable pants made of a material that Oliver didn't recognize that looked like flexible Kevlar with the ends tucked into the lace up leather boots on his feet. Some sort of special goggles covered his eyes, reminding him of something that Applied Sciences had made a few months back for the military.

His gaze shifted to the woman and narrowed.

It was the female archer from the night before.

She was standing slightly in front of the man in a somewhat protective manner, her body angled in Oliver’s direction, like she knew he was the biggest threat in the room, but her attention was settled in the opposite direction toward Roy. For the first time Oliver took a good look at her. Like the man, she wore a leather jacket with a hood. Tight leather pants encased her legs and a thick belt was wrapped around her waist. His gaze traveled lower and he dared to raise a brow at the over the knee leather boots she wore that appeared to have a wedge heel and a high platform. The only weapon that she appeared to be carrying was her bow and the quiver full of arrows on her back.

Oliver watched as the corner of her mouth pulled up slightly and her head tilted to the side some. “Why do you look so frightened, Roy?” she asked, placing her gloved hands on her hips. “I'm not angry.”

His gaze shifted from her to his protégé as the younger man shook his head, blue eyes darting in his and Diggle’s direction for half a second before focusing back on her. “It's not you I'm afraid of.”

Roy’s words hung in the air and all eyes darted in Oliver’s direction. He froze and he turned their words over in his head as he attempted to play catch up.

“You know her. You let her in.” He faced Roy and was only able to take half a step in his direction before the dark haired woman was blocking his path, her compound bow already raised and nocked with an arrow.

“If you want to be angry with somebody, be angry with me,” she told him. “You have lost many members of your family, Oliver – you cannot afford to lose another. Roy has been abandoned before and he carries that pain with him every day, but you being there for him fills the void. He won't survive being abandoned again—not by someone as important to him as you.” Her words rattled him to the core, draining him of any anger he felt, and he stared passed her at Roy’s vulnerable expression. The sticks fell from his grip and landed on the floor with a rattle, prompting the woman to lower her bow and replace the arrow back in her quiver.

“And you're right, Roy does know me. But he didn't let me in,” she continued with a phantom smile, “I let myself in.”

“Who are you?”

“Sacrifice, and the guy with his hand on his knife is Faith.” At her words the man jumped slightly and guiltily pulled a gloved hand out from behind his back.

The sound of Diggle's voice startled Oliver but he didn't let it show. Somehow he had forgotten that the older man was there with them. “Why are you here? What do you want?”

Sacrifice’s head tilted ever so slightly to the side. “I could give you many answers to your questions, but I'll give you the simplest of them all: I'm looking for my friends. I want to bring them home, John.”

The ex-soldier’s voice was hard like steel and as cool as ice. “How do you know our names?” he asked. Oliver's gaze shifted away from Roy to her. He wanted to know the answer too.

“I know a lot of things – some I learned, others revealed to me over time,” she answered cryptically. Her head tilted in the direction of the glass display cases. “And don't worry, Roy didn't breathe a word about anything to me.”

“That's because you already knew everything, Sacrifice,” Roy called out.

The woman grinned at his words and Oliver watched as her bow quickly collapsed and folded in her hand before she clipped it at the small of her back. “Pull the table out for me, Roy. Faith, you know what to do.” Both men sprang into action at her words as she brushed passed both him and Diggle to the back of the foundry and into the darkness, completely at ease with her surroundings.

Diggle dropped his sticks on the training mats and moved to stand beside Oliver. “What do you think they want down here?” he asked.

Oliver shook his head and watched as Roy wheeled the table they usually used for surgery to the center of the room. “I don't know, Digg,” he sighed. Faith removed his hood to reveal a dark shaggy head of hair the same shade as the woman's before unzipping and shrugging out of his jacket. His jaw clenched tightly at the sight of the vest completely covered in various kinds of sharp blades the man wore underneath and he silently questioned how dangerous these strangers were.

“Are you seeing what I'm seeing?” Digg asked incredulously.

He nodded sharply once. “Yes,” he ground out.

Footsteps drew their attention and they looked up just in time to see Roy rush over to the woman as she came out from the other end of the foundry. He grabbed the other of the long flat wooden box she was carrying.

“What the hell is in this thing?” he groused as they dropped it on the table. “It's fucking heavy.”

Sacrifice shrugged and removed the lock. “Is it? I didn't notice,” she absent-mindedly told him, digging through the contents of the box.

Roy leaned against the table next to her and watched as she pulled out a long cylindrical tube and popped the cap off. She reached in and pulled out a handful of sharpened arrows before replacing them and putting the tube next to the box. The next thing she pulled out was a knife in a holster followed by a small black duffle.

“When did you put this down here?” he asked suddenly, peering into the box to see what else was in there.

“A long time ago, when things were different.” She unclipped her bow and quiver and dropped them down on the table before removing her jacket to reveal a dark green shirt underneath and grabbing the duffle bag. “Faith.”

He sunk down in the chair in front of the bank of monitors and quickly typed in a few commands on the computers before plugging in the tablet he was carrying. “I know what to do, you don't need to walk me through it a second time,” he reassured his partner. She nodded, satisfied, before slipping into the bathroom, leaving the men alone.

Oliver watched her walk away and once the door closed firmly behind her he turned to watch the man. His fingers flew across the keys confidently at a speed he had only ever seen one other person type before. Multiple screens popped up across the three monitors, each displaying something different from the other. Lines of code flashed across one of the screens while the other two appeared to be the security feed for a set of cameras. On one of them, he saw flashing strobe lights illuminating the sweaty, writhing bodies as they moved to a beat he couldn’t hear. Oliver felt his brow furrow in confusion as he quickly glanced at each of the boxes on the screen displaying different areas of the same building.

What were they planning to do at a club?

Almost as if he had read his mind, Roy spoke. “Did you just hack the cameras at a club? Is that what you wanted to do down here?”

Faith was already shaking his head. “No. My sister went in and installed some special software so that we could get access the other day since they were offline.” He paused in his typing to grin up at Roy. “We came down to the Arrowcave because she's going undercover tonight while I'm her eyes in the sky, so to speak. And she needed to come get her stash anyway,” he added, throwing a thumb over his shoulder at the box.

“Undercover?” Digg murmured softly to Oliver. “Why would someone like her need to go undercover when she's already hiding behind a mask?”

Before he could respond the door to the bathroom opened, followed by the familiar clicking of women’s stilettos. He turned and couldn’t help but stare.

Sacrifice had changed out of her leather outfit and into a short, tight hot pink dress that left very little to the imagination. It had a deep plunging neckline that reached down almost to her navel, held together by a single thin string, emphasizing the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra. Despite the fact that he still thought she was a threat, he was still a man. Oliver's gaze moved lower and he took a moment to appreciate how long her legs looked in the heels she wore and the creamy skin of her exposed thighs.

He suddenly became hyper aware of the sudden tightness in his pants and forced himself to look at her face. Gone were her long brown locks, replaced with a chin length platinum blonde wig. Her mask was gone and Oliver saw light green eyes framed by long, thick lashes. She wore dark, heavy makeup around her eyes that mimicked a mask with what looked like little rhinestones forming a crescent moon around one eye. His gaze strayed to her lips, painted a luscious pink, and he found himself wondering what it would be like to kiss her.

Oliver paused in his perusal of the woman at the thought and froze. His heart beat furiously in his chest and he forced himself to gain his composure again.

Why did it suddenly hurt so much?

He swallowed and searched her face again for an identity to match, but he couldn't. She had put her makeup on for just that purpose.

“So, what do you think?” she asked, smoothing a hand down the almost nonexistent skirt of her so-called dress.

Roy let out a low whistle. “I think you look smokin’ hot.”

Faith raised a brow and eyed her critically. “You remind me of the hooker who propositioned me right off of the Strip the summer before I went to college,” he told her, nose wrinkling a bit at the memory. “But nice touch with the color contacts – I wouldn't have thought of that.”

The corners of her mouth ticked up into a soft smile at that. “Thanks.” She grabbed the knife she had pulled out earlier and lifted her leg onto the small stool sitting in front of the lab area. Oliver watched as she lifted her skirt and made quick work of strapping the blade to her thigh.

A part of him wished that he had been the one to do it for her just so that he could confirm that her skin was as soft as it looked.

“Here.” The sound of Faith’s voice shook him from his stupor and he watched as Sacrifice took the small flesh colored earbud he offered her. “I synced our comms to the system like you told me to so you're good to go.”

She nodded and flashed him a smile. “Wish me luck.”

* * *

**The Claddagh – August 10, 9:37 PM PST.**

Felicity leaned back against the bar and closed her eyes, letting the sensual, sexy beats of the song playing to wash over her. Her hips swayed to the beat and she relaxed in that moment, pretending for just a minute that she was just another woman out at the club looking for a little fun.

“Incoming,” Percy warned suddenly in her ear. “Douchebag at your eleven o'clock.”

She groaned softly and slowly opened her eyes, casually letting her gaze to wander around the club and rove over the sweaty, writhing bodies on the dance floor in front of her before settling on the guy. He was of average height with spiked jet black hair and pale blue eyes, dressed casually in a pair of dark jeans and a gray button-up open at the collar with the sleeves rolled up to showcase his muscular forearms. Felicity eyed him with obvious disinterest and turned her head slightly to the side so that the wig covered her mouth from the guy's sight.

“Somebody shoot me. Please,” she groaned, making Roy chuckle.

“Hi.” She rolled her eyes and slowly turned to look at the guy.

“Yes,” she prompted flatly, raising a single perfectly sculpted brow. “Can I help you?”

His tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip as he basically eye-fucked her. “I've been told that I know how to pleasure a woman in all the ways that matter,” he grinned at her.

A low growl sounded in her ear over the comm link at his words and, startled by the sound, Felicity raised both of her brows as a slow smile curved at her mouth. _Someone sounds jealous_ , she thought, imagining how tightly Oliver was most likely clenching his jaw.

She grinned at the thought and refocused on the guy in front of her. “Oh, yeah?” she yelled over the music, making the guy’s grin widen in anticipation. The growl sounded in her ear again. “I've been told the same thing by my girlfriend.” The douchebag’s eyes widened comically and he spit out some excuse about meeting some of his friends before all but running away. Felicity turned back to face the bar and ordered a shot of vodka, the roar of laughter in ear.

“I can't believe you just did that!” Roy laughed as she slammed the shot back with little difficulty. “That was even better than the last guy when you straight up told him to go fuck himself!”

“Believe it.” She slipped off her barstool and weaved her way onto the dance floor, seamlessly integrating herself among the other writhing bodies as she rocked her hips to the beat. “But here comes the even better part, Roy.”

Felicity moved with the beat, letting it guide her movements. The song sped up and so did she. Arms raised above her head, she moved with the pulsing music and let her eyes wander. She spotted two burly men wearing expensive suits standing guard at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the offices and backrooms where all kinds of illicit activities took place. Drug trafficking, money laundering, and illegal gambling all took place just above the club with all of the partygoers none the wiser. Felicity idly wondered what these people would do if they knew. Would they leave the club, never return to one of their no doubt favorite haunts? Or would they turn a blind eye to it all and party on?

“At your six o'clock.” Felicity dipped her head slightly in acknowledgement but otherwise continued to move to the pulsing beat of the music as a pair of hands came down to rest on her hips. They flexed once before gripping lightly. She leaned back against his chest and loosely wound her arms around his neck as they continued to move to the beat.

Another growl sounded in her ear and the corner of her mouth ticked up at the sound. She heard her brother suck in a breath before he spoke. “You really need to cut that shit out.”

“Yeah, Oliver,” Roy interjected, an undertone of laughter lacing his voice. “What's your problem anyway?”

Felicity ignored them and continued to dance with the guy. She scanned the faces around them, spotting the perfect candidate. Once she was ready, she rolled her hips into his and he took that as his cue to get handsy with her. She forced herself to stay relaxed and calm for just a few minutes longer, waiting for the perfect opportunity.

It came just a minute later when one of his hands came up to squeeze her breast while his other arm banded around her waist, holding her to him in a way that was too tight to be only casual.

“Let go of me!” She flung his arms away from her and drove the sharp heel of her stiletto into his foot hard. Felicity quickly schooled her features to make her appear startled, uncomfortable, and downright scared as she stumbled into the man she had singled out. He was at least six feet tall and was basically a wall of hard muscle and looked exactly like the type of guy who didn't like poor, defenseless girls getting violated.

“Please, help me!” she cried out, grasping at his arm. The man stared down at her in shock and confusion as she pointed back at the guy who was howling in pain and hopping on one foot. “That guy, he’s my ex. He’s been stalking me for weeks and he just tried to drag me out of the club!” At her words the man quickly nodded as he stepped around her and confronted the guy.

Felicity dropped her act as she weaved through the people in the direction of the stairs and the two guards, the sound of fighting behind her getting louder with every step she took. She stopped in front of them and hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Hey, it looks like a fight broke out,” she yelled over the music. The guards shared a look before taking off for the dance floor. Smirking, she made her way up the stairs to the upper floor of the club.

“You just started a riot,” Roy informed her. Cutting down the first hallway, Felicity grinned to herself.

“Is he alone?” she asked.

Percy hummed in the affirmative. “Yup. He's just sitting in his office. Looks like he needs a little company, sis.”

Felicity slowed to a stop in front of Sean Malley’s closed office door. She adjusted the skirt of her dress to make sure that her knife wasn't visible and fixed her wig before rapping her knuckles against the wood twice. There was a pause before a muffled voice told her to enter.

Coy smile in place, Felicity slinked into the office.

* * *

**The Foundry – August 10, 10:19 PM PST.**

Oliver watched from over Faith’s shoulder as Sacrifice slipped into the office of a redheaded man. The man sitting behind the desk looked up and his eyes widened at the sight of her. He relaxed back into his chair and slowly let his gaze travel over her.

“Can I help you with something?” the mobster asked, closing the lid of his laptop and pushing it aside.

She smiled at him and Oliver watched as she walked across the room until she stood in front of him with the desk separating them. “I think you can,” she purred, perching on the edge of the desk, sensuously crossing one long leg over the other.

“What the hell is she doing?” Roy asked incredulously. “Is she trying to sex this guy up or something?”

Oliver’s jaw clenched tightly at the thought. He didn't know why the image of this stranger having sex with another man made him so angry, but after watching her, the way she moved, the way her hips swayed as she walked and almost sent him into a hypnotic daze, seemed so familiar to him.

Like he had spent a very long time around this woman and had learned to recognize her just by the way she walked.

It was like he was protective of her, in a way that he was sure Digg would call almost possessive if he ever told the man.

But that made no sense.

He had never met her before last night.

He didn't even know the identity hidden behind the mask yet. 

“That is something that I would like to know, too.” Oliver started at the voice before realizing that it was Faith speaking in reply to Roy’s question, rather than his unspoken thought.

On screen, Sacrifice ignored them and teasingly trailed her fingers along the dip of her dress. “My name is Candace,” she told him, voice unbearably sweet in Oliver’s ears. But not so sweet for him to ignore the undertone of danger that she hid behind her teasing smile.

“Sean,” the man croaked out in a throaty Irish brogue, eyes roaming over her slender figure in a way that made Oliver want to smash his face into his desk. He pulled at the tie around his neck before standing abruptly and circling around until he stood in front of her. “What can I do for you, Candace?” he asked her, gaze trapped on the exposed valley between her breasts.

She shifted to face him and uncrossed her legs. “Well,” she sighed as he eagerly stepped between her parted thighs and braced his arms on either side of her. “I want you tell me something, Sean.” He leaned in to kiss her and Oliver had to look away. Digg met his gaze with a single questioning brow and he frowned and tightly clenched his jaw, but otherwise gave nothing away.

A shout from Roy brought his attention back to the screen just in time to see a flurry of pink and dark gray as Sacrifice tightly clenched one hand in the red hair of Sean Malley, forcing a yelp of pain from between his lips, as she wrapped her legs around his waist and flipped their positions until she was the one leaning over him, wrists gathered tightly in one hand. The other was tightly wrapped around the pale skin of the man’s neck. Malley’s face was twisted in anger and malice as he spit out curses at her.

She put a little pressure on his neck and he fell silent. “Are you done?” When he said nothing she continued. “Now, Mr. Malley, I want you to know that this isn’t personal. I’m just here to gather the information I need and I'll be on my way,” she all but cooed to him in that sugary voice she had adopted.

“Who are you? Who sent you here?”

A pout formed on her face as she teasingly ran the hand that was wrapped around his throat along his chest. “Isn’t it obvious? Salvatore Ferraro sent me.”

Something akin to horror formed on the man’s face at the name and he froze beneath her. “Big Sal sent you? You're the enforcer he sent to come after me? They said you weren't going to be coming around for at least another week!”

“Then you heard wrong.”

“My men, they're supposed to check on me soon,” he stuttered out, but she was already shaking her head.

“Oh, no. They're a little preoccupied right now dealing with a problem on the dance floor.” She grasped his chin and forced him to look at her. “By the time they get the chance to come up here to check on you, I'll be long gone.”

He glared up at her through narrowed eyes. “Who are you?”

Her head tilted ever so slightly as a smile curved at her lips. “The boys back home in Vegas have all kinds of names for me, but they like to call me Candy. Candy Sweet,” she cooed. “Because I am sweet, like candy,” she continued in that false saccharine sweet voice as she ran a soothing hand up and down his chest. “But I can also be venomous like the Tibetan pit viper,” she snarled, snaking her hand back around his throat and squeezing tightly. After a moment she released him and leaned down to place a tender kiss on the column of his exposed throat where it was already starting to bruise in the shape of her slender hand.

“If you behave properly, I won’t have to be so rough with you, Mr. Malley. I have one little question for you and then I’ll be on my way.” She smiled softly down at him and unknotted his tie before quickly tying it tightly around his wrists.

“Go to hell, you bitch,” Malley spit at her, bucking his hips up in a vain attempt to throw her off of him.

A cold look crossed her face and she backhanded him. “I really don’t like that word.” She leaned over him, bracing both hands on the desk beside Malley’s head, as she looked into his eyes. “Now, I’m only going to ask once. Where is Andrew O’Sullivan?”

Oliver’s eyes narrowed at her question. Why did that name sound familiar?

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” he told her, gaze straying from hers to her exposed breasts.

She must not have liked his answer because she grabbed a fistful of his hair and tugged, eliciting a sharp cry of pain from him and making his back arch until he was sitting upright, while simultaneously pulling out her knife and pressing it against his neck. “You’re lying. He’s your best friend, Sean, you know where he is! Now tell me!” she snarled, pressing the blade just a little harder until a single droplet of red blood appeared on the sharp metal.

Malley whimpered. “He’s in some little town in Kansas.”

The sound of frantic typing filled the air in the foundry and Oliver glanced away from the screen to see Faith pull up a map of Kansas alongside a search program before focusing on Sacrifice again.

She pulled back some but didn’t remove the blade from the man’s neck. “Which one?”

“I don’t know. I never remember the name of the place, but it’s famous for that meteor crash back in the eighties,” he stuttered out. “He lives out in the middle of nowhere, playing farmer and growing corn like the rest of the locals.”

Satisfied with his answer, Sacrifice put her knife away and gave him a light pat on the cheek before setting her feet back on the floor and untying him. “Thank you,” she murmured softly before slipping out of Malley’s office and weaving her way through the hallways above the club until she found the set of stairs at the back.

“So, um, that was a little… _different_ from your regular interrogation style, sis. Usually, you make them watch as you drain their bank accounts or use one of Batman’s patented techniques – _scaring the crap out of the guy_ ,” Faith said, breaking the shocked silence in the foundry as they watched as his sister quickly pushed out of the back of the club and out of their range of sight from the cameras.

They heard the slam of a car door followed by the roar of an engine. “I know. When I was doing research on the guy before we got to the city, I learned something… _interesting_ about Sean Malley,” she said with a heavy sigh over the comms. “He keeps a dominatrix by the name of Lady Duchess on his payroll and keeps her ready at his beck and call.”

“Really?” he asked. “I wouldn’t have pegged a big bad mobster like him to give up control in any capacity.”

“Me either.” There was a pause before she spoke again. “I’m cutting communications now. Check for the usual.”

Faith nodded almost absent-mindedly before switching out the cameras to the club to the facial recognition software on one of the monitors and pulling up a set of six photos on another. Oliver quickly scanned the faces of the people in the photos, three male and three female, and silently read the names that went with them. Some he recognized from his days with Waller while others he did not.

_Jade Nguyen._

_Kyle Abbot._

_Sandra Wu-San._

_David Cain._

_December Graystone._

_Paula Brooks._

He watched as Faith input their photos into the facial recognition program and run the scan before shifting his attention to the third monitor where a map of Kansas was pulled up. Oliver caught Roy’s eye and tilted his head for the younger man to join him.

Roy walked across the foundry until he stood with him and Digg near the training dummy and looked between the two with a raised brow. “What?”

Oliver gestured toward the computers. “What do you know about that?”

He frowned in confusion. “About what?”

“The search he's running now.”

Digg crossed his arms across his chest and stared through narrowed eyes at the six photos. “I recognize one them from my days back in Afghanistan. David Cain. He was a ranger – one of the best – before he went rogue and became a mercenary, a hired gun.”

Oliver frowned at this information. “Two of the women – Sandra Wu-San and Jade Nguyen – they're known assassins.” He looked to Roy again. “You know them, so you must know why they’re searching Starling for these assassins.”

Roy’s brow furrowed and he shook his head. “I don’t know anything, Oliver. They’ve only told me that they were keeping a low profile from some people looking for them – I didn’t know they meant assassins.”

The sound of the security door unlocking accompanied by high heels on the stairs paused their conversation and Oliver found himself glaring at Sacrifice. She paused a few steps from the bottom of the stairs and raised a brow at them. “What’s wrong?” Her gaze flicked in her brother’s direction and she let out a soft sigh. “Oh. That. Don’t worry about them. It’s just a little precaution in case they didn’t get the memo that their contract has been terminated. Even if they happen to show up, their only goal would be to kidnap my brother and me.”

“Yeah,” her brother called back to them. “And they were given strict instructions not to leave behind a string of bodies. Otherwise, they weren’t getting paid even if they managed to bring us in.”

Oliver watched as Sacrifice gave them a smile before walking passed them to the bathroom. He didn’t know what to think of her. She was like a question wrapped in an enigma.

A few minutes later she came back out dressed in her leathers, dark hair pulled back into a ponytail at the top of her head and face clean of makeup. Her mask was back in place, hiding away her eyes and baring Oliver from knowing what she could be thinking or feeling. She made her way across the foundry and immediately strapped on her quiver and clipped her bow at the small of her back.

Oliver watched as she braced her hands on the table, head bowed as she breathed deeply. Cautiously, he moved to stand across from her on the other side. Eventually she raised her head to look at him. She sighed and gave him a weak smile before speaking. “I’m sorry for taking over your space like this. If I thought there was any other place we could have gone, I would have gone there instead.”

“Why are you running from those assassins?”

Her jaw clenched tightly and she shook her head once. “We’re not running,” she said unevenly. “We’ve stopped running. If we were still running, we wouldn’t be looking for our friends. Starling City would have been the last place we would have gone if we were running from mercenaries and assassins.”

“Why would it be the last place?” he asked.

The corner of her mouth pulled up in a humorless smile and she leaned across the table toward him. “Because the people I care about the most are here and I left so that they would be safe from the very bad people who were out to get me. The very same people who were willing to use them against me. If I didn’t leave, Oliver, they’d all be dead.”

He blinked and intently stared at her, noting the crack in her voice when she said his name this time. “Do I know you?”

She tensed and stepped back from the table, fists tightly clenched at her sides. “I don’t think now is a good time to answer that question, Oliver.”

“Why?”

“Because neither one of us is ready for what would happen if I told you,” she whispered. Sacrifice offered him a weak smile and turned to face her brother, effectively ending their conversation. “Faith,” she called out. “What have you found?”

He glanced at her over his shoulder and swiped at the screen, sending the map he was looking at to the monitor behind Oliver. “The town Malley was talking about is called Smallville and it’s really famous for the three meteorites that fell into the cornfield off of the one major road in the entire place,” he said, spinning around to face her.

She nodded, eyeing the monitor. “Then we’re going to Smallville,” she declared, closing and locking the wooden box and scooping up the container of arrows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear what you guys think so far - so comment, comment, comment!! :D


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Wednesday! 
> 
> Thanks for all the comments and kudos as usual, guys! I'm glad so many of you like this fic :)

**Coast City, California.**

**Dropaway Beach – August 14, 11:24 AM PST.**

Felicity scanned the wide expanse of what was the city’s largest and most popular beach. Families littered the sands enjoying the warm, sunny weather. Laughing children were having fun building sandcastles and searching for colorful seashells with their parents. Women were laid out on their colorful beach towels tanning or reading underneath their umbrellas. A little ways away from them, a group of teenagers was playing volleyball while others swam and playfully splashed one another in the clear blue water.

But what really caught Felicity’s eye was the sheer number of surfers lining the sands with their boards. There could have been dozens of them, men and women alike, young and old.

One surfer in particular caught her attention. He had pitch black hair that stood out among the sea of pale blonde of the group of men and women, making his skin seem even paler than he already was. What looked like a pentagram was tattooed over his heart, Felicity noted, as she watched him say something to make the people surrounding him laugh.

Sitting beside him on the picnic table he was perched on was a young girl about the same age as him with wild red hair streaked with black. She was wearing a floral print dress and her feet were bare. One slim arm was loosely wrapped around his neck and her chin rested on his shoulder.

Felicity slowly made her way across the crowded beach until she stood directly in the girl’s line of sight behind the group and waved. The girl’s eyes narrowed before widening as she stared at Felicity. She whispered something into the guy’s ear and his head snapped up. A wide grin spread across his face and he waved off the group in front of him.

“Felicity!” he called out excitedly.

She chuckled softly and made her way closer until she stood in front of Klarion Bleak.

It had been almost three years since she had seen the kid. The last time was in the Gotham City morgue as he stood over her where she had previously laid dead on a hard steel autopsy table after he had revived her. His dark eyes had glowed a startling navy blue and his skin had taken on an inhuman blue tinge that day. It was actually kind of scary now that she thought about it.

But now he was surprisingly pale considering how much time she knew he spent surfing the waves of Dropaway Beach.

Klarion leaped off the table and wrapped Felicity up in a tight hug before releasing her. “You made it,” he grinned.

“Yeah, I did. But not without a few bumps in the road,” she sighed, thinking of Sara and everything that happened afterward in Nanda Parbat. But she forced those thoughts away and playfully smiled at the boy. “Look at you. You're almost twenty now. Last time I saw you, you had just turned seventeen and was one of the moodiest teenagers I had ever met. Now you're happy and light like all these other surfers.”

He grinned bashfully, self-consciously smoothing back his dark hair. “Yeah. I guess a lot can change in a couple of years.”

Felicity’s attention shifted to the girl still sitting on the table. “Hello, Teekl.”

The girl lazily stretched and arched her back, offering Felicity a teasing smile. “Hi,” she purred.

“I see you learned transformation and made your familiar human, Klarion,” Felicity noted, taking a good look at Teekl. If she squinted, the girl’s features looked distinctly feline.

Klarion snorted and leaned back against the table, prompting Teekl to drape herself back around his shoulders like the cat she really was. “I had to. Do you know how awkward it is to bring a cat to the beach with you?” he asked, gesturing around them. “You know I have to keep her close to keep my powers from getting too out of control and the only way to do that was to make her into something else that wouldn’t make people look at me funny. It was either make her human or into a monstrous cat creature.”

A mischievous smile curled at Teekl’s mouth. “Now I can transform at will,” she said, flashing Felicity her sharp teeth. “Want to see?”

“Maybe another time,” she told her. “What do you say to people who ask you who she is?”

The boy grinned and dropped his arm around Teekl’s shoulders. “I just tell them the truth—that she’s my best friend in the entire world.”

Felicity chuckled softly and nodded. “That’s good, kid,” she said.

“It’s better than telling them that I’m really a warlock’s cat that was magically turned into a person,” Teekl purred, nuzzling her face into Klarion’s neck.

Klarion laughed, squeezing Teekl tight to his side before releasing her. Silence fell over them and he took the time to observe Felicity. She looked the same, just a little older, but there was just something about the way she carried herself that seemed different. It was like she was attempting to relax even though her body was on constant alert.

“This isn’t a social visit, is it?” he asked.

She shook her head, looking out at the water where the surfers were riding the crashing waves. “No,” she sighed. “Percy and I were able to track Drew down to a town called Smallville.”

A frown pulled at the corners of his mouth as he stared at her in confusion. “And why don’t you sound happy about that?”

Felicity glanced at him before focusing back on the ocean. “Because in the two days Percy has been there, he’s flashed Drew’s photo to every local that would talk to him and they all gave him the same answer—that they didn’t recognize him. I stayed behind to do a digital search but nothing useful has come up since my software’s completely out of date.” She sighed softly and settled her blue gaze on him. “I need your help finding him, Klarion.”

He nodded once and carefully lifted the necklace that hung around Teekl’s neck. “Well, you’re in luck,” he told her. “I already made something that can help.” Klarion fingered the crystal pendant and stared passed Felicity’s shoulder with a distant look.

“After Dad died, Mom went into a depression,” he started. “She started drinking to deal with the pain. She basically became a functioning alcoholic. Got up, made sure me and my sister went to school, went to work, came home and made sure there was dinner on the table every night. But in between everything, she made sure she had a drink to numb the pain away.”

Felicity could only stare at him. “I didn’t know, Klarion.”

He chuckled humorlessly and shook his head. “No one knows except for me. She’s kept it hidden for the past five years. None of her friends know and my little sister refuses to see it. I only figured it out when she stopped training us.”

“What?”

Teekl settled her dark eyes on Felicity. “Charity stopped teaching Klarion about a year after his father died. She’s actually stopped practicing all together. I’ve been watching him flounder around trying to teach himself ever since. Poor boy doesn’t know what he’s doing unless it’s raising the dead.”

The broody look on Klarion’s face broke as he pouted at her. “Teekl!”

She sent him a droll look. “You almost didn’t succeed in making that locator crystal in the first place. Tell Felicity why you even made it,” she ordered.

He sighed, kicking up sand with his foot. “Fine…About six months after you guys all left for Europe, I got worried and spent three months trying to figure out how to check if you were okay. I found a spell in one of my dad’s old journals and after some trial and error I finally got it to work.” Klarion held out the crystal for Felicity to take. “I only used it once to check up on each of you. Afterwards, I realized that in the wrong hands bad stuff could happen – people could die if the wrong ones were looking for them. So I kept it in the safest place I could think of—around Teekl’s neck.”

Felicity ran her thumb over the smooth surface of the clear crystal pendant. She held it up at eye level and saw familiar blue in the center. “How does it work?”

“It should be noted that figuring out how to use that crystal was also trial and error,” he told her. “But all you have to do is hold it over a map and think of the person you want to find, the crystal will do the rest.”

She nodded, dropping the necklace over her head. This little crystal would be useful later on when they went looking for Auggie next.

Felicity tilted her head to the side and considered Klarion, turning over everything she had just heard in her head. A sudden thought struck her and a slow smile curved at her mouth. “When do you go back to school?” she asked him.

He shared a confused glance with Teekl. “I have to be back on campus by the end of the month…Why?”

“I think I know somebody who can finish your teaching – a magician. People call her the Mistress of Magic, so maybe you’ve heard of her. She was trained by Zatara before he passed away.”

Klarion stared at her in shock. “Zatara?” he asked breathlessly. “I thought he was just a myth. Who is she? This magician?”

“His daughter Zatanna,” she told him. “If she decides to teach you, she'll probably train you in more than just the occult.”

A wide smile spread across his face. Never had he thought that there could be someone to help him. Just the thought of learning new spells made him giddy. “Thank you!” he exclaimed, wrapping her up in another hug.

She laughed and hugged him back. “You’re welcome, kid, but really I should be thanking you. I owe you one.”

Klarion shook his head at her and his expression turned serious. “You’ll never owe me, Felicity. Not after what you did for me when I was a little kid.” Felicity met his gaze, both of them remembering what had happened, and nodded.

* * *

**_Thirty-three months ago, December 2015._ **

**_Las Vegas, Nevada – Six days after the incident._ **

_The door to the small bungalow slowly opened to reveal a petite blonde woman on the other side. She was dressed in a blue floral blouse and dark wash jeans with a pair of cream colored stilettos on her feet. Her makeup was carefully applied to complement the dark magenta lipstick she wore. Looking at her, it struck Oliver just how much she looked like Felicity._

_She held a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun behind him and squinted up at him. “Yes?” she prompted. “Can I help you?”_

_“Donna Smoak?”_

_Her crystalline blue gaze narrowed and she frowned. “Do I know you?”_

_Oliver dipped his head once. “Yes, we met at your son’s graduation last May. I came with your daughter.”_

_Recognition lit up in her eyes and she quickly nodded. “Mr. Queen.” She stepped back and opened the door wider before gesturing for him to come inside. “I'm sorry – I didn't recognize you dressed so casually.” Mrs. Smoak quickly closed the door and led Oliver into her living room. “Please have a seat. Would you like something to drink, Mr. Queen?”_

_“Water, please,” he said to her, observing how well put together and calm she seemed to appear, despite having just lost both of her children only a week before. “And please, call me Oliver, Mrs. Smoak.”_

_She nodded, offering him a slight smile. “Only if you call me Donna,” she bargained, giving him a playful wink before stepping out of the room._

_While she was gone Oliver took the time to look around the room. No two pieces of furniture matched and were all different colors and patterns, but somehow it all seemed to go together, regardless of how much of an eyesore it all was. The walls were painted a bright turquoise with white trim. Two matching abstract paintings hung side by side on the wall beside where he sat. The entire room was ordered chaos, but somehow it seemed to soothe Oliver’s nerves and calm the overwhelming grief he had been flooded with since Roy had walked into his office and told him the news._

_A framed photo resting on the end table beside him caught his eye and he reached over to pick it up. A smiling Felicity, her blonde hair windswept and wild, beamed up at him from beneath the glass. She had her arms wrapped tightly around a young smiling teenager with bright, fire engine red hair that he recognized to be her brother. They were standing on a beach with their backs to the ocean where in the background, he could see people surfing the waves._

_She looked so happy and carefree in the picture._

_He just couldn’t understand what had gone wrong in her life in the six months that she had been gone that she had been driven to take her own life._

_A lone tear fell onto the glass and he willed himself not to shed any more. He had promised himself that when he went to visit Donna that he wouldn’t cry._

_“I remember that day,” a voice murmured softly beside him and he flinched in surprise at Donna’s sudden reappearance. She handed him the glass of water in exchange for the frame, sitting down beside him. “She had just graduated from MIT two weeks before. We had gone to Coast City for a week to celebrate. My baby girl had wanted to spend our last day there on the beach…” Donna trailed off, gently running her fingertips over the smiling faces of her son and daughter. She chuckled suddenly and shook her head. “I remember being so shocked that she was suddenly blonde when I finally saw her at her graduation. It was like looking at a younger version of myself.”_

_Oliver silently watched her. How could she be so calm right now? She had just lost her son and her daughter in one foul swoop. They had both committed suicide with three other people by leaping off of one of the most famous buildings in the country and here she was, sitting there beside him as if it was just any other day._

_It didn't even look like she had been crying or was even attempting to mourn their loss._

_Maybe she was in denial or it hadn't hit her yet._

_“I'm sorry for your loss,” he told her._

_Donna nodded and settled her blue gaze on him with a knowing look. “And I'm sorry for yours,” she returned. “I know you love her. It was obvious to me in the way you were looking at her at my boy’s graduation, and then later at that dreadful party. Even now as you sit here next to me.”_

_He swallowed against the hard lump that had lodged itself in his throat and nodded._

_She was right and there was no use in denying it._

_Oliver took a drink of his water as Donna replaced the frame. Her head tilted slightly to the side as she silently appraised him. “Ask me what you came to ask, Oliver. I could tell from the moment you stepped into my house that you were dying to ask me something.”_

_He nodded and met her gaze straight on. “Why weren't there funerals for Felicity or Percy?”_

_“They left me very specific instructions as to how they wanted things to be done after they died.” Donna nodded toward a corner table where two ornate looking urns sat. “One of those instructions was to have their bodies cremated and their ashes spread in the Nevada desert that they once called home.”_

_Oliver stared at her in confusion, his heart racing in his chest. “Why?” he breathed._

_She shrugged and looked away out the front facing window that overlooked the street. “I couldn't tell you. Neither of their letters gave me a reason.”_

_“How are you so calm about this? Both of your kids are gone!”_

_Donna stared at him intently and was silent for so long that he didn't think she was going to answer him at all. “In my heart,” she finally whispered, “they're not gone. A part of me doesn't think that any of this is real. That somewhere out in the world they're still alive.”_

* * *

**Starling City, California.**

**The Foundry – August 14, 6:48 PM PST.**

An unexpected blow to the chest sent Oliver crashing down to the mats as his mind snapped back to the present, head swimming with the strange memory of the first time he had ever visited Donna Smoak after he had heard the news.

As he lay there his mind wandered yet again in the past four days to Sacrifice and he tried to reconcile her words and actions to what he knew.

But doing that just made his head hurt even more than it did before she had shown up in the foundry and said what she'd said.

He thought of her familiarity down here with the layout, the computers, that box she had kept hidden for who knows how long.

The answer to all of his questions was right there in front of him, but he just couldn't seem to put all of the pieces together. Maybe going to go see Donna and talk to her would help clear his mind some.

“What is this?” Oliver blinked and saw Laurel and Roy from his position on the floor. She had the envelope that the woman who had visited Roy at Queen Consolidated had given him tightly gripped in her hand. “I told you I wanted to talk to her.”

Roy shrugged at her. “She gave that to me to give to you if you asked to talk to her,” he told her. “Don't ask me what's inside because I've got no clue.” He closed his messenger bag and tossed it back to the floor next to his suit before moving to sit in front of the bank of computers.

Laurel ripped open the envelope and a sleek black phone fell into her open palm. She stared at it like it was a ticking time bomb before quickly pocketing it. “I'm supposed to meet Dad for dinner, so I'll see you guys later,” she tossed over her shoulder as she rushed across the foundry toward the exit. “Call me if something comes up.” And with that she was gone.

“Oliver!”

Oliver blinked in surprise up at Digg as the older man hovered over him, face wearing a concerned expression. He grasped the hand held out to him and let Diggle help him to his feet.

Still staring at him in concern, Digg released him. “Are you okay, Oliver?”

He nodded, scooping up his towel. “I'm fine.”

Digg raised a brow and stared at him dubiously. “You were distracted back there, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get a hit like that in,” he said. “What's on your mind?”

“It’s nothing, Digg,” Oliver disagreed with a shake of his head. “I was just thinking. I’m fine.” He stalked off across the foundry and started to pull himself up the salmon ladder, unaware of the look Digg shared with Roy.

* * *

**Laurel Lance’s Apartment – August 14, 7:59 PM PST.**

Laurel paced back and forth across her living room, television blaring behind her in the background.

She didn’t know what to do. Now that the opportunity to talk to the person who had witnessed Sara’s death was right there in front of her, she wasn’t sure if she was ready to hear what she had to say. Just the notion of her sister’s death not being an accident made Laurel automatically want to reject the thought. Because it couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t be.

If it was then that would mean that the world was far worse than she ever thought it was. That no one was safe, not matter how strong and resilient they were. And her sister was one of the strongest people Laurel knew. If Sara really was murdered like that woman said, then the world was a cruel, cruel bitch that strived to make everyone’s lives the worst they could ever possibly be.

Laurel paused in her pacing and anxiously chewed at her lower lip, eyes drawn to the slim black phone innocently sitting on the coffee table. She reached out to pick it up, but snatched her hand back at the last second.

 _Stupid,_ she silently reprimanded herself. _It's just a phone. I'm Black Canary. I go out at night and fight the dangerous criminals of Starling, and I'm afraid of a phone._

With a heavy sigh, she sat down on her couch. She wasn't ready to hear the truth, and she probably never would be, but she needed to hear it. Of that she was sure. If she never knew what that woman had to say she was going to regret it for the rest of her life.

Mind made up, Laurel muted her television and picked up the phone, quickly turning it on. The display lit up a moment later and she quickly accessed the contact list. Only one number was programmed in. She hesitated one last time before dialing.

It rang three times.

“Hello, Laurel.”

She breathed deeply and clutched at the phone. “I’m ready to meet,” she said. “I want to know.”

“That’s good to hear. You should know what really happened last year.”

“I want to meet as soon as possible, like tonight, maybe,” Laurel rushed out as she leaped to her feet. “Just tell me where and I'll be there.”

There was a muted, pregnant pause before Sacrifice responded. “I don’t think that will be possible. I’m not in Starling right now and with the way things are right now it looks like I’m going to be gone for at least a couple weeks. I’m sorry, Laurel.” She sounded apologetic.

Laurel bit at her lip. “Oh,” she whispered softly, her disappointment audible.

“But when I get back, the first thing I’ll do is call you and we’ll meet then,” Sacrifice reassured her.

“Okay.” She made to hang up, but the woman said something to make her pause.

“In the meantime though you should tell your father, Laurel.”

“Why?” she demanded, already thinking of the negative reaction her dad was going to have.

There was a soft sigh. “Because we’re going to need his help if we want to put the person who covered her murder up in prison,” she said before promptly hanging up before Laurel could respond.

* * *

**John & Lyla Diggle’s House – August 14, 8:35 PM PST.**

“I love you, Cassandra,” John whispered softly as he securely closed his daughter’s bedroom door. He then quickly and methodically did a sweep of the upper floor of the house, making sure that all of the windows were locked and secured, before doing the same downstairs with his gun at the ready just in case.

Satisfied that the house was secure, he made his way into the living room where he spotted Lyla resting on the end of the sofa intently reading something on her tablet that was no doubt A.R.G.U.S. related. John paused to lean in the doorway to watch her. A soft smile pulled at the corners of his mouth and he moved further into the room until he sat beside her.

Lyla put her tablet aside and leaned in to press a kiss to his lips. “Cassandra missed you today,” she murmured softly against his lips.

“I missed her, too, sweetie,” he sighed, thinking of their nearly four year old daughter. “But Oliver’s been acting weird ever since those people showed up at the foundry. Apparently he canceled three of his meetings yesterday and then he canceled another one today. I just thought Roy was exaggerating when he told me that the man just sits in his office all day staring off into space until I saw it with my own eyes.”

Humor lit up in her eyes and the corner of her mouth ticked up as she stared at him. “You only call me sweetie when you want something, Johnny.”

He grinned and laughed good naturedly, lightly squeezing her to his side. “Of course you caught that.”

Lyla nodded with a matching grin of her own. “Of course,” she agreed. “Just ask me, Johnny. I know you've been dying to the moment you walked in the door.”

“Did you find out anything about them?”

She picked up her tablet and swiped at the screen. “Based on the description you gave me on those two, only a handful of files and reports came up and they were partial matches at best,” Lyla said, handing the device to him. “From what I was able to understand, there were three others besides them, but ARGUS was never able to get any clear pictures of them—any of them.”

John skimmed through a report written by a low-level field agent that dated back to ten years ago in Markovia. The agent had said that one night on assignment in the capital, he and another agent with him had seen three men grappling down the side of a financial building above heavy traffic. A black haired woman armed with a bow waited on the roof playing lookout. The three men entered the building by breaking a thirty-second floor window. Fifteen minutes after this an explosion occurred inside the building three floors below and within the next five the woman on the roof was gone and a different dark haired woman had appeared at street level with the young American teenage boy who had been missing for over a year and had been declared dead a month previously. He remembered hearing about this kid. His face had been plastered all over national news and people were saying that it was a miracle that he'd been found alive after people had given up hope.

“Wow.”

She met his astonished look and nodded. “I know. I was surprised when I read that too. But the really shocking one was the most recent report I was able to dig up from over nine years ago,” Lyla told him, leaning over and swiping across the screen of the tablet until a file dated March 2009 came up. He skimmed at the file as she kept talking.

“In 2009 a strike team entered a building in Hong Kong known to be controlled by the Triad. They were tasked by Waller to go in and retrieve a person they had been calling the Witch Boy. The mission ended up being a failure. Three men and a woman had entered the building before the strike team had even showed up while a dark haired woman stayed behind on the roof, again armed with a bow.” John nodded, following along with the reports in the file. “An unnamed operative Waller had stationed in Hong Kong gave his statement and he said that he had faced off against the woman, that she was hell-bent on not letting him get passed her but was firm on not killing him. They were at a standstill. The operative then said that she had told him that the only way he was going to get passed her was if he killed her. He said he didn't hesitate when he realized that she was serious and shot her point blank between the eyes. Her death seemed to be a catalyst because almost immediately everything went wrong in under five minutes. Four separate bombs in the building went off within seconds of each other. In the end two members of the strike team died and the group who had entered before them had disappeared along with the Witch Boy.”

He handed the tablet back to her after he finished reading the report. “So this mysterious archer – Sacrifice, or whoever she is – can’t be the same person as the one in the files since she's dead,” Lyla concluded.

“A dead end,” he sighed heavily, sinking further back into the cushions of their sofa. He was back where he started when it came to those people who had showed up the other night. It was like he had taken one step forward only to realize that he had actually taken two steps backward instead when it came to them.

Sensing John’s inner turmoil, Lyla pressed a reassuring kiss to the corner of his mouth and rested her head on his shoulder as they settled in to watch the news before going to bed. “You'll figure it out eventually.”

John nodded and pressed a kiss on the top of his wife's head before pushing away thoughts of masked vigilantes and focusing on the latest events in Starling that for once weren't focused on the most recent crimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me what you think – I'd love to hear :)
> 
> If you didn't know, Klarion in the comics is a sorcerer who was born in a place called Limbo Town where necromancy was common practice by all of the town's citizens and sometimes had run-ins with members of the Justice League and Young Justice.
> 
> Oh, and if anyone can figure out where I got Dyla's daughter's name (since I had to name her something else since Sara was still alive when she was born) from will get a teaser from the next chapter (*hint - think of Lyla's comic history and the Amazons of Themyscira).


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Wednesday, guys! Here's an early Christmas present for those who celebrate :)
> 
> We get to meet another member of the Batfamily this chapter along with one of Felicity's fellow comrades from the first chapter.

**Smallville, Kansas – August 16, 10:05 AM CST.**

The door to the small hotel room opened and her brother walked in waving the map in his hand slightly over his head. “The kind old woman at the front desk gave me this,” he said, dropping the folded piece of paper onto the table in front of Felicity where she sat perched on the edge of the armchair in the corner. “It mainly shows all of the tourist sites like the craters where the meteors crashed, but it shows the streets and the main fields and stuff.”

Felicity nodded and unfolded the map. “Hopefully this works,” she sighed, pulling the crystal Klarion gave her from around her neck. Holding onto the end of the cord, she held the crystal over the center of the map right over city hall and thought of Drew. At first nothing happened but after a few seconds the crystal glowed a bright vibrant blue before dragging north across the map, past the cornfield where the meteors landed, before stopping.

Percy leaned over her shoulder to look at the map from his position on the arm of her chair. He frowned and glanced at her.  “Is it me, or does it look like he lives in the middle of a cornfield?”

Scooping up her pen off the end of the table, Felicity quickly circled the place where the crystal rested before dropping it back over her head. “It's probably his way of keeping people away. Like the big scary house on the hill that everyone thinks is haunted. Except he lives on a farm completely surrounded by corn.” She refolded the map and tucked it into her bag before standing up. “Grab your stuff. It’s time to pay Drew a visit.”

Her brother stood and shot her a look. “You do know he's going to wave a gun in our faces when we get there, right?”

She nodded. “I know.”

**August 16, 10:47 AM CST.**

Percy slowly rolled the SUV to a stop before turning the ignition off. Felicity looked out the windshield and took in the modest little farmhouse. It was painted a light blue with white trim and a wraparound porch. A small barn painted the same color as the house was set not too far away with a black pickup truck parked in front of it.

They got out of the SUV and slowly made their way toward the house. Everything was deathly quiet, emphasized by all of the tall green cornstalks surrounding them at all sides. Felicity quickly scanned the area and noted that there was no obvious movement other than the single cow in the small field beside the barn slowly making its way to the opposite side.

“I don’t like this, Feliss,” Percy muttered under his breath. “I’m having flashbacks to all of those slasher flicks I watched in high school.”

Ignoring him, Felicity slowly reached back underneath her jacket and placed her hand on the handle of the pistol she had stashed at the small of her back. Something wasn’t right; she could feel it.

Yells erupted from beside them and Felicity fully drew her gun as she pivoted to face the cornstalks. Seconds later two boys no older than twelve or thirteen came barreling out of the field, screaming at the top of their lungs completely covered in fresh cuts and scratches from running through the stalks. Neither boy noticed Felicity or Percy as they kept running down the dirt path that led back to the main road.

A tall dark imposing figure emerged from the field where the boys had just come from with a yell of his own that forced Felicity to raise her gun again. Waving the shotgun in his hand above his head, he ran to a stop at the end of the dirt path. “And stay off my property! Next time I won’t be this nice!”

Shoulders heaving as he panted, the man lowered his weapon and scrubbed a rough callused hand over his face. “Stupid kids,” he muttered under his breath. The man looked up just then and caught sight of Felicity and Percy standing there. “Who the fuck are you and what are you doing on my property?” he growled at them, already tensing again.

Felicity frowned and stared him. The man was at most six feet tall with a thick bushy beard that completely covered his face and pale green eyes narrowed to angry slits glared out at them. He was wearing a green plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and tucked into a pair of jeans. Her frown deepened and she raised a brow at the shotgun pointed at them. She glanced over her shoulder at Percy and, unsurprised, saw a wide-eyed look on his face.

She sighed and rolled her eyes to herself before replacing her gun at the small of her back again. “Andrew, I suggest you lower that gun from our faces before I do it for you.”

His eyes narrowed even further as he looked between the two before widening in surprise. He quickly straightened up and lowered the gun as a sheepish grin lifted the corners of his mouth. “Sorry,” he muttered apologetically, scratching at the back of his head self-consciously. “I didn’t recognize you guys for a second there.”

Felicity nodded, eyeing his appearance again. “It’s okay, Drew. But I’d be lying if I said we didn’t recognize you either.”

“Yeah,” Percy interjected. “Nice beard you’ve got there,” he said, pointing at the dark brown mass of hair covering his face. “And I’m loving the new look – it helps sell the scary farmer who lives in the equally scary cornfield thing you’ve got going on here.”

Drew flashed him a grin. “It keeps the locals from sticking their noses in my business. Except for the occasional kid dared to steal some corn from my fields I don’t get any visitors.”

Felicity rolled her eyes at him and shook her head. “It’s a little much if you ask me. You could have hid just as well by blending in with the rest of these people and being friendly instead of scaring little kids and teenagers with an unloaded shotgun. This is the kind of place that would have been easily over looked.”

“But that’s where your wrong, Felicity,” Drew murmured softly. A haunted faraway look clouded his face and he slowly shook his head. “So very, very wrong.”

She and Percy shared a look. The League did something to force him out, something worse than what happened to them. “Bruce said you hadn’t been in Ireland for at least a year when he found us last month.”

His head snapped to look at them, face paler than usual with eyes still filled with that haunted look. “Well he’d be right.” Drew quickly glanced around them, keen eyes scanning the fields. “Let's go inside,” he rushed out, moving to herd them inside the house.

They settled around the small round table in his kitchen a few minutes later. Felicity watched as Drew bustled back and forth around the small room. His back was turned to the siblings as he quickly opened and slammed closed the overhead cabinets. She could hear him angrily muttering under his breath about something that she couldn’t quite catch.

Percy nudged her under the table with his foot and she turned slightly to meet his gaze with a questioning look of her own. “What's wrong with him?” he hissed softly. “He's different. Less… _hopeful_ than he used to be.”

Felicity shrugged silently. She had an idea but she didn't want to say. Drew was only going to confirm it anyway if she was right. And for once she really hoped she wasn’t.

The kettle on the stove whistled and Drew quickly turned the heat off. He mumbled something unintelligible under his breath before pouring tea into three plain white mugs on a small tray with cream and sugar and bringing it to the table. Drew dropped into the open chair and lifted the mug closest to him and silently spooned sugar into the hot liquid. Percy and Felicity shared a look before following suit.

A tense silence settled over them as they stiffly drank their tea. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her brother subtly gesture between her and Drew as if to say, “Do something!” causing her to sigh in exasperation. She pushed her mug away and turned to face their friend.

“Drew, you don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to, but Percy and I are curious about what happened in Ireland,” she said, voice soft and steady. “And quite frankly, we’re a little worried about you, too.”

Eyes downcast, Drew placed his mug on the table. He stopped and started twice before finally gathering enough courage to speak. “Did Ra’s ever track you down and send some his agents for you in London? Because he did for me,” he started. “They came in the middle of the night. Screams woke me up—terrible, gut wrenching screams. I jumped out of bed and ran outside. By the time I got out there, it was too late – my neighbor and her twin twelve-year-old son and daughter were dead…” he trailed off, eyes taking on that haunted look again.

The corners of Felicity’s mouth turned down in a frown as she stared at him. She hesitantly reached out and placed her hand over his tightly clenched fist where it rested on the table. “It wasn’t your fault, Drew.”

He snatched his hand out from under hers and shook his head. “Yes it was!” he cried out. “If I hadn’t made friends with that woman, she and her kids would still be alive today! Just because I _knew_ them they were killed. When I got out there, the entire neighborhood was outside and they saw their bodies. Throats slashed and a bloody trail from where they had been dragged out of the house.” His eyes slammed shut and Felicity watched as a lone tear slid down his face and into his beard. “They stayed and they watched the aftermath of their handiwork. Three of them, armed and dressed in League garb, waiting for me to reveal myself.”

“Felicity’s right, Drew,” Percy agreed. “It wasn’t your fault. Their blood isn’t on your hands – it’s on the League’s hands. On Ra’s al Ghul’s hands.”

He slowly shook his head but said nothing. It was obvious that he didn’t agree with them.

Jaw locked, Felicity silently watched him. She hadn’t seen him like this in a long time. Years ago, long before their last mission in Hong Kong, she had seen Drew in a state similar to this. He had always been somewhat of a pessimist, but never so bad that he would think that everything that had gone wrong was his fault. She had only seen him like this once before and to be honest she never wanted to see it again.

Gabriella had once described what he was going through to a Pandora’s Box of dark emotions that had been opened up inside of him that buried any hope he had at the very bottom. She had said that once that box was opened it was hard to shut it again – that it would only shut once he realized that there was hope in the world and that he had the power to bring it back.

That he would be himself once he snapped out of whatever dark emotion he was drowning in.

The last time he was like this, Felicity had watched as he spiraled out of control in a mess that consisted of meaningless sex with random women and binge drinking that nearly killed him.

Now it was a downward spiral of deep depression and guilt that left untreated could end disastrously.

She looked on as Drew openly cried in front of them, the wet tears spilling into his beard, and made a decision.

Felicity abruptly stood from the table and grabbed her brother by the arm before dragging him out of the kitchen and leaving Drew there.

“Felicity?” Percy questioned as he let her drag him through the farmhouse and up the stairs. “Mind telling me what’s going on?”

She opened each of the closed doors until she found the one she was looking for. Immediately making a beeline for the closet, Felicity threw the door open and riffled through the miscellaneous junk Drew had mixed in with his clothes and shoes.

Behind her, Percy sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. Almost immediately after he sat, Felicity turned and threw something at him before digging through the closet again. He looked down and picked up what looked like a duffle bag from his lap. “Um, Feliss?”

Without turning, Felicity spoke. “Start packing some of Drew’s stuff – he can’t stay here anymore,” she said, leaning up to pull the big gray suitcase from the shelf. “And call Bruce, or Tim – _somebody_ – and have them come here so that they can take him back to Gotham. To his sister.” Felicity roughly dropped the suitcase down on the bed next to him and flipped it open before pulling clothes from the drawers.

He gaped at her. “Why? Felicity, what’s going on?”

Felicity dropped a stack of shirts into the suitcase, glancing at him. “Pandora’s Box,” she spit out.

“You can’t be serious,” he deadpanned. When she didn’t respond, Percy blanched and nervously ran a hand through his long hair. “That’s what’s wrong with him? Damn. Can’t believe I didn’t even notice back there.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, Percy. And you did notice – you just didn’t recognize it because it’s different from last time,” she pointed out, throwing a pile of socks into the overflowing suitcase. “Call somebody to take him to Gotham.”

Percy slowly rose to his feet but paused. “Call somebody? Why can’t we take him to Mary ourselves?”

“Because when I was boarding the plane back in Coast City, I saw Lady Shiva. _Again_ ,” she huffed, struggling to zip the suitcase before finally getting it to close. “I don’t want to take any chances in case she followed me here and is lurking around somewhere like we thought when we first got to Starling.”

Pulling out the encrypted phone Felicity had dug out of her closet for him, Percy scrolled though the contacts list. “She’s friggin’ crazy. Ra’s already called the bounty on us off and she’s still going around trying to hunt us down,” he growled, finding the name he was looking for and holding the phone up to his head. “Wasn’t it enough the first time for her?”

Felicity shrugged but said nothing as she dragged the now heavy suitcase out into the hall and down the stairs. She left it by the front door before slowly making her way back into the kitchen. Drew was standing over the sink washing out their mugs, blankly staring out the window.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shut down on you guys like that.”

She leaned against the counter next to him and shook her head. “Don’t be.”

He turned his head slightly to look at her, sticking his hands back into the soapy water. “You said Bruce came for you?” he asked.

“Yeah. Ra’s called the bounty on our heads off a few weeks ago and he and Damian tracked us down. He told us that you and Auggie hadn’t been in Ireland or Spain for a while so we went to Paris to talk to Gabriella but her parents’ house is heavily guarded now. Percy and I tried to explain who we were, but we got tossed off the property before we could even get two words out,” she told him, absentmindedly rubbing at her shoulder where the bruise from that incident had once been. “So we tracked you here after I had a little talk with Sean Malley.”

Drew raised a brow at her to convey his skepticism. “You talked to Sean? I think you did more than just talk to him, Felicity.”

She shrugged and smiled unapologetically. “I did what I had to do, Andrew.” Her expression turned serious as she reached up to firmly grip his shoulder. “And I’m going to do it again now. You’re not well and I think on some level you already know that. We packed you a couple bags and Percy’s calling somebody to come take you to Mary so that she can help you like last time.” Somber blue met sad pale green and Felicity tightened her grip. “The next time we see each other, you’ll be yourself again, Hope.”

The corners of his mouth turned up halfheartedly. “I hope so.”

* * *

**Starling City, California.**

**Queen Consolidated – August 16, 11:12 AM PST.**

Oliver stared at the picture sitting on his desk.

It was a candid photo of him and Felicity taken by Donna the last night he had seen her. They were standing in the doorway of the living room of the small townhouse her brother had been living at the time. His college graduation party was going on full swing around them but they were completely oblivious to it all. In the photo her head was thrown back mid-laugh – eyes closed, wide smile pulling at her cherry painted lips – while he grinned with her.

He remembered everything about that night in stark detail. The way her eyes shined with pride and happiness every time she laid eyes on her brother. The sound of her laughter as she told him a story from her childhood. The music that had been playing but stopped abruptly at the sound of glass shattering followed by screams and people rushing to escape. The wild look of fear that had flashed behind Felicity’s eyes as they got separated in the chaos.

That was the last time he had ever laid eyes on her.

Every time Oliver thought about that night he regretted not telling her that he loved her.

He especially regretted it when he remembered what had happened later that year.

A knock sounded on the door of his office followed by someone calling his name. Slowly, he tore his gaze from the picture frame and looked up. Oliver met Diggle’s gaze first where the man sat near the door, back ramrod straight and watching him with all-seeing eyes, before sliding across to look at the person standing in the open doorway.

Roy stood there, a thin file firmly gripped in his hand, warily eyeing him. “Oliver,” he repeated, “you have a lunch meeting scheduled with Research and Development at eleven-thirty. Here are the notes and paperwork you requested.” He exchanged a look with Diggle before stepping deeper into the office and dropping the folder onto the desk.

Oliver blinked at him and pushed the file away. He looked back at the photo again and felt his heart clench painfully in his chest. “Reschedule it like all the others,” he said flatly, voice devoid of emotion. “I can’t make the meeting today, Roy.”

His executive assistant made a noise that was somewhere between a sigh and a snort of laughter that made him sharply look up. Roy smugly crossed his arm across his chest and shook his head. “Sorry, Oliver. I can’t do that.”

“And why not?” he bit out just a little too sharply.

“Because they’re already here. They arrived about two minutes ago and I’ve already shown them into the conference room. The only one not in there is you,” Roy told him. He shared a shit-eating grin with Diggle before sweeping an arm out toward the open door. “After you, Mr. Queen.”

Oliver glared at him but buttoned his suit jacket as he stood and snatched up the file. He threw Roy one last scathing look before forcing a smile on his face and making his way into the conference room.

Like the good CEO he was, Oliver spoke when necessary, made notes, and gave his hard, honest opinion when given the chance. He asked the hard questions and maybe he used his Arrow voice on them when Roy came in thirty minutes into the meeting to drop off lunch and was reminded of why he was even sitting there in the first place.

And maybe – just maybe – it caused the people sitting in front of him to sit a little straighter and try harder to please him.

Afterward, once they were all gone, he stormed out of the conference room and back into his office. Roy and Diggle were sitting in front of his desk talking in low voices before falling silent once they realized that Oliver had returned. He eyed them suspiciously and dropped into his chair.

The two of them turned to look at him, saying nothing. Oliver resisted the urge to fidget under Diggle’s penetrating gaze. “What?” he said, finally breaking the silence.

“We’re worried about you,” Diggle told him, cutting straight to the chase. “You haven’t been yourself. From what Roy’s told me and what I’ve seen myself, you’ve been canceling meetings left and right, just sitting in your office all day staring at that photo of Felicity like she’ll magically appear in front of you. And at night you’re reckless, going in without backup.” Oliver looked away. He knew that he had Roy reschedule a few of his meetings, but was it really more than he thought?

Diggle continued when he didn’t respond. “Does this have to do with that woman who showed up at the foundry the other night? Or is it Felicity?” he asked, nodding toward the frame on the desk. “Or is it both, Oliver?”

Oliver blinked and looked at Diggle. “I don’t know, Digg. Maybe. The things she said to me when I asked if I knew her…” He shook his head to himself and shifted his gaze to focus on Roy. “Who is she? Who is Sacrifice?”

The younger man shook his head with a frown. “No. I already told you I’m not telling you, Oliver. She asked me not to tell you and I’m going to honor the promise I made her. She’ll tell you when you’re both ready.” Roy studied him for a long moment before rising. He pointedly looked at the stack of manila folders sitting on the corner of his desk. “Those are the contracts that you need to look over and sign by three o’clock.”

Oliver huffed but brought the documents closer. His executive assistant nodded sharply once before leaving and returning to his desk. He watched him set up his tablet and start typing, quickly becoming immersed in whatever he was doing.

The feeling of being watched prickled uncomfortably at his skin. He met Diggle’s gaze head on and raised a brow at the man. “What now?”

“Oliver, I haven’t seen you like this in almost three years.”

He sighed and tiredly dragged a hand down his face. “I miss her, John. More so now than ever. That woman, she just reminds me so much of Felicity that it hurts.”

Diggle looked at him like he was crazy. “ _She reminds of you of Felicity?_ ” he repeated incredulously. “In what way does that woman remind you of her?”

“Everything. Nothing. There’s just something about her that has me comparing the two of them,” he murmured, glancing at the photo again. “We still don’t know what drove Felicity to do what she did, John. A part of me wonders if nothing is the way it looks when it comes to her suicide.”

* * *

**Smallville, Kansas – August 16, 8:11 PM CST.**

The sound of a car coming down the road drew her attention and Felicity looked up just in time to see a black Jeep pull up to the house. “Drew,” she called out softly. He slowly turned from watching the sun set and followed her gaze across the porch.

The passenger side door of the Jeep flew open just then and a tall redheaded woman jumped out. “Drew!” she cried out once she caught sight of them. She sprinted across the small lawn and up the few steps before throwing herself at him. “I missed you so much, big bro,” she sighed.

Drew wrapped his arms around his baby sister and hugged her back. “I missed you, too, Mary.”

Felicity gently nudged her brother awake beside her on the porch swing just as the driver stepped out. The familiar head of black hair with white fringe hanging in his eyes let her know that it was Jason Todd, one of Bruce’s sons, who had brought Mary. He slowly made his way up onto the porch before unceremoniously dropping down into the space on her other side.

“The hell spawn said you two were alive, but I didn't believe him,” he told them, completely skipping over pleasantries. “Apparently I was wrong.”

Percy leaned around her to look at him, incredulous. “And why the fuck didn't you believe Damian? Did you seriously think we were dead?”

Jason shrugged. “There were rumors.” He said it like it explained everything.  “After all, Ra’s isn't known for his mercy. Especially when he wants something from you,” he added, resting his hand over his lower abdomen where the angry scar from a scimitar had once sliced through him lied.

He turned to face Felicity then, his expression somewhat of a mix of curiosity and awe. “So how'd you find him?” Jason asked, nodding toward where Drew and his sister were whispering in low voices. “Not even Bruce or Dickie Bird could do it. They almost couldn't track you two down if it weren't for the fact that two people matching your descriptions were seen fleeing arson fires all over Eastern Europe.” Felicity frowned at the mention of the fires, the reason why she and Percy were following that arsonist in the first place rearing its ugly head at the forefront of her mind yet again.

Remembering that Jason was staring at her expectantly, she shot him a smile. “I have my ways, Jason.” He stared at her through narrowed eyes for a long time before chuckling under his breath and stretching out on the swing beside her.

Percy stood a moment later and wandered over to where Drew and Mary stood and seamlessly joined their conversation. Felicity watched them and once she was sure that they weren’t paying any attention to her she fully turned to face Jason. “Has Bruce found anything yet?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

Jason shook his head once. “No. There’s no trace of him or his daughter. None of his aliases have popped up anywhere. It’s like he’s a ghost.”

She frowned at the news. It sounded just like him. Elusive and flying under the radar, hiding under the cover of his money for discretion in whatever place he had taken his daughter and holed up in over the past four years.

Felicity chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip before meeting Jason’s gaze again. “Add this name to the search – Dearden. It was her mother’s maiden name.”

He nodded, mentally cataloging the name for later, before standing to his full height. “So, where are you going next?”

“Central City, home of the Flash,” she sighed.

“Good luck over there,” he drawled, dragging a hand through his white fringe in that arrogant way of his. “The place is crawling with all kinds of metas now.”

She nodded, getting to her feet herself. “Thanks for the tip.”

“It’s nice to know that I was wrong about you guys being dead,” he said, eyes trained on the horizon. Felicity offered him a small smile, knowing that was the closest she was going to get to him telling her that he missed them.

Jason nodded one last time before herding Mary and Drew off the porch and into the Jeep. They waved goodbye to Percy and Felicity before driving off into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you don’t know who Jason Todd is he’s one of Batman’s former protégés. He was Robin II and then he later became the Red Hood, an homage to the Joker’s former alias before he became the Clown Prince of Crime, after a series of unfortunate events involving said villain and then later the League of Assassins.
> 
> I'd love comments, they literally make my day when I see one pop up in my inbox :D


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Wednesday! Thanks for all the support as usual, lovelies!

**Central City, Missouri.**

**Central City Police Department – August 17, 11:47 AM CST.**

Felicity adjusted the sunhat on her head until it no longer flopped down into her eyes and ran a hand down the front of her skirt to smooth out imaginary wrinkles. 

“Tell me again why you think it’s safe for you _not_ to wear a wig,” Percy asked, eyeing her long brown locks where they hung down her back. “You said the guy who works with Auggie’s sister _knows_ you, knows what you look like, what you sound like. What makes you think that he’s not going to recognize you, Feliss? I know he’s not Oliver and I know he didn’t basically spend three years watching you like a hawk and try to secretly give you moon eyes every time your back was turned—and _don’t_ even try to deny it, _everyone_ with eyes could see the way he was looking at you at my grad party—but he was your friend, too.”

She scowled and flicked the brim of the baseball cap on his head. “Because, if you haven’t noticed, I don’t exactly look the same as a brunette as I do a blonde. And I’m wearing my green contacts. Besides, brown is common. Forgettable. If he notices something, he’ll most likely forget anyway because we’re not going to stay long. I don’t plan to have any run-ins with the Flash while we’re here if I can help it. As soon as we speak to Esperanza, we’re gone.”

He scowled at her and fixed his hat until it was straight again. “And what if she’s not there and he is?” he pressed. “It’s almost noon. People like lunch. Esperanza’s got to eat too.”

Ignoring him, Felicity pulled the door to the police precinct open. She quickly scanned the faces of the officers and detectives. Once she was sure that no one was paying them any attention, she urged Percy to move and they made their way to the elevator. The doors opened automatically and they made their way up to the top floor.

They passed the art deco piece proudly displayed on the wall reading _Truth-Liberty-Justice_ , the loud chatter of the entire floor surrounding them as they walked to the crime lab. Spotting Detective West out of the corner of her eye, Felicity pulled the wide brim of her hat firmly down over her eyes. She wasn’t taking any chances if he spotted her. But she didn’t have to worry because he was preoccupied with booking somebody he had brought in.

As they continued walking, Felicity brushed her hands down her sides, smoothing imaginary wrinkles from her blush pink dress one last time before they finally entered the forensics lab. Everything looked the same from the last time she was there. Some of the equipment was upgraded, but that seemed to be the only change.

The view of the city caught her attention. It was brighter here, happier than Starling, but there was no doubt that it held its own secrets and darkness in its heart. After all, the rumor that King Kong was in the sewers wasn’t just a rumor.

“Look at this.” Felicity turned at the sound of her brother’s voice and moved to stand beside him. He pointed at the investigation board that had been constructed. First glance left her with little doubt that Barry Allen had made it. “Do you see this?”

She bit back a groan. _Why was Barry looking into our deaths?_

Percy tapped the grouping of photos pinned in the middle of the board. “Do you see this?” he repeated insistently. “I told you those fake pictures you made would come back to bite us in the ass. _I told you!_ ”

Felicity examined the copies of the pictures she had periodically sent Oliver in the months after Percy’s ruined grad party by the League. She remembered the lies she had told him, remembered how every time she said the words they would burn her mouth immediately followed by the reminder of the danger that hung over his head.

Each of the photos featured some variation of herself, Percy or both of them standing in front of European and Eastern Asian landmarks and backgrounds. But not a single one of them was real. She had created them in order to back up the story that she had told Oliver. 

The story where her baby brother had begged her to go backpacking with him before he went job hunting.

Her gaze flicked over the board, noting the copy of the article published by the Gotham Gazette about their suicides and the blurry night photos taken by camera phones posted on the Internet of a man and a woman running over rooftops in various foreign countries. She raised a brow at the ten-year-old picture of herself with the jet-black hair and heavy eyeliner from her very brief Goth phase at the end of her college career. A note scrawled in Barry’s neat handwriting caught her eye. 

 _Death certificates missing. Gone six months after suicides – like someone had wiped them from existence. What does this mean?_  

Beside her, Percy stiffly pointed at the photo of himself wearing a black tux, cherry red hair slicked back on his head, with his arm slung around the slim waist of Zatanna Zatara. She was wearing a deep purple halter neck prom dress with her black hair swept into an elegant updo. They looked happy in the picture but right now her brother was very much the opposite. “Where the _hell_ did he get this from?” he hissed angrily, snatching it from the board.

She made to respond but stilled. They weren’t alone anymore. Percy glanced at her from the corner of his eye and shoved the picture into his jacket pocket before they both turned.

“I see you’ve found the clues I’ve compiled for the mystery I’m trying to solve.”

Barry Allen stood in the doorway, a friendly but curious expression on his face. He swiftly walked across the lab and dropped the bag hanging on his shoulder onto the desk closest to them. “I’ve been investigating for almost three years now and no matter how much evidence I’m able to dig up, no one seems to believe me about this one,” he said, moving to stand beside the siblings. Barry’s eyes closed briefly and he seemed to shake his head to himself before he focused his attention on them. “But I don’t think you guys came here to listen to me babble about my dead friend and her brother being really alive. I’m Barry Allen by the way, Head Forensic Scientist. How can I help you?”

Felicity forced a smile and shook the hand he offered her. “Fiona Shawe,” she told him, internally cringing as the fake name passed her lips. “And this is my cousin Parker. We were looking for Esperanza San Nicolas, but it seems like she’s not here right now…”

He nodded. “Yeah, her husband came to take her out to lunch a little while ago. But she should be back in about an hour or so if you guys want to wait for her,” he offered.

But she was already shaking her head. Felicity had no desire to wait around under Barry’s scrutiny. She could already see him analyzing them and if they stayed there any longer there was no doubt in her mind that he was going to start asking questions. Maybe even put the pieces together and figure it all out while he was at it.

“No, that’s okay, Mr. Allen.” Felicity pulled the folded note she had written from her oversized purse. “But can you give this to Esperanza for us?” she asked, handing the note to him.

“Sure, I can do that,” Barry said. “Is there anything that you want me to tell her?”

She shook her head. “No, I think the note just about covers it all.” A more genuine smile pulled at her lips. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Allen.”

He grinned. “It was nice to meet you, too.”

Felicity linked her arm with Percy’s and they made their way out of the lab. Once they were out of earshot, Percy glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “That guy’s the head forensic scientist?” he murmured just loud enough for her to hear him. “He looks more like head of the high school chess club.”

* * *

**Central City National Bank – August 17, 2:15 PM CST.**  

Tucking her phone back into the inner pocket of her leather jacket, she turned and spotted her brother lying flat on his back, one leg bent at the knee, on the far side of the roof. Felicity zipped her jacket back up despite the sweltering heat and adjusted her quiver as she made her way over to him.

After leaving the police department, they changed back into their suits and armed themselves. Jason’s warning from last night had struck a cord. If Central City was as full of villainous metahumans as he had implied, she wanted to be prepared if something happened. 

Felicity stood next to her brother’s head. His eyes snapped open and he squinted up at her, hand moving up to shield his eyes from the sun. “What did Esperanza say?” he asked. 

“She has a couple things to take care of before she can leave but she said she would meet us at CC Jitters sometime around five.” She made to continue but paused.

Screams erupted from below, filtering up over the sounds of heavy afternoon traffic accompanied by the sudden blaring of sirens in the distance. Felicity tensed and quickly unclipped her bow from the small of her back. The compound bow grew and extended to its full length with a press of a button as she sprinted across the roof of the bank, hand moving up to turn on the radio built into her mask. She gracefully dropped down the side of the building, landing six feet away from the entrance. Percy landed beside her a half second later with his goggles firmly in place and a hand tightly gripped around the handle of his combat knife, body tightly coiled for a fight.

Felicity nocked her bow just as a red streak entered her peripheral vision. She ignored him and focused on the door as more screams erupted from inside the bank and the glass of the windows began to ice over and freeze. Behind her mask, Felicity’s eyes narrowed and she spotted a crack beginning to form.

“Get back!” she yelled out, diving over the hood of the car closest to her just as the glass shattered and exploded into hundreds of sharp, tiny shards.

Rising to her full height, she quickly took aim at the blue skinned man with ice white hair who came waltzing out of the bank where the door used to be and released her arrow. It met its mark and imbedded itself in the shoulder of the arm holding the bag of money. The man let out a snarl, snapping the shaft and ripping the arrowhead from his icy flesh, and held a hand out in her direction. A cold blast of ice came from his hand and Felicity dove out of the way.

As she went flying through the air, she released another arrow aimed toward the feet of the man this time. It ignited upon impact and a small, contained flame started, forcing the man back with a yell. Felicity landed on her side with a hard grunt in the middle of the street. “Faith,” she called out as she rolled onto her feet, bow already nocked. “Distract him!”

His voice crackled through the radio. “Got it!” And he sprinted across the sidewalk, sending the small silver throwing knives flying through the air in the direction of the man. Enraged, the iceman thrusted his hands out, sending blasts of sharp ice shards toward Percy that forced him to duck and weave.

Felicity released another of her incendiary arrows just as the Flash streaked passed her. He moved in to engage the metahuman just as CCPD cruisers arrived on the scene from both ends of the street.

“Cameron Mahkent!” the Flash yelled out before streaking out of sight and sending a series of punches at the bank robber.

Mahkent let out a snarl as he recovered and sent a blast of ice in his direction. The Flash streaked out of the way before rushing him and engaging the other metahuman again. He threw his arms up to shield his face just as Mahkent blasted more ice at him. He went flying back through the air, landing hard on the hood of a parked car on the other side of the street.

Leaping back onto his feet, Barry watched as the archer nocked back arrow after arrow, each one piercing the ground and igniting a fire. A throwing star whizzed past his head and he turned. He spotted a man similarly dressed to the archer sending a volley of sharp projectiles through the air in Mahkent’s direction.

Barry reached up and activated his communication link with Star Labs. “Guys, I’ve got company here – an archer and a knife thrower. The archer—she’s firing some kind of incendiary arrow that starts a fire. It looks like she’s trying to box in Icicle.”

The sound of fingers flying over a keyboard sounded before Caitlin’s voice crackled through the radio. “It looks like every time Mahkent sends out a blast of ice, he’s actually freezing the water in the air rather than generating the ice from his body like we originally thought. The archer is heating up the air surrounding him so he can’t do that.”

“Do you think she works with the Arrow?” Cisco asked excitedly. “Or was maybe trained by him? Because we’ve been watching her and she’s got some sick moves. That dude with her does too. Did you see him throw that last knife? It looked like something straight out of a movie!”

Barry watched as the archer moved in and nocked back two arrows at the same time, these ones imbedding themselves in Mahkent’s shoulders and forcing a cry of pain from his lips. The knife thrower casually flicked one last knife that landed in his upper thigh that finally sent him crashing to the ground in a heap inside of the ring of fire. 

“I don’t know, maybe,” he finally responded. “It’s possible. I’ll ask.” In his ear, he heard Cisco crow in excitement.

He slowly made his way closer, waving off Joe and the others from moving in closer to them and instead signaled toward the bank to help the people in there.

“He’s just like that meta in Paris,” he heard the man say to his partner as her bow collapsed in her hand and she clipped it to the small of her back attached to her quiver. “Fucking ice blasting us and shit.”

She nodded sharply. “At least we know one way to subdue an ice-based meta. Remind me to thank Batman for the arrows. I’m going to have to learn how to build them now that I know they work.”

A sharp gasp whistled in Barry’s ear. “No way. _No way!_ She _did not_ just say Batman!” Cisco all but squealed.

The knife thrower turned to look at her. “You didn’t know if they worked? What the hell!”

“I trust Batman to not give me faulty equipment, but I just never tested them. He sent them to me and I threw them in the trunk and forgot about them.”

The archer looked directly at Barry just then from behind the dark lenses of her mask and nodded toward Mahkent. “Got anything that’ll stop him from hurting anyone so I can put the fire out?” she asked.

Barry nodded quickly, surprised at being addressed. “Yeah,” he answered a beat late, producing a pair of handcuffs Cisco had designed a couple years ago to neutralize metahuman powers. He stepped through the flames and made quick work of cuffing Mahkent, pulling the arrows and knife from his body afterward. Barry held a tight grip on Mahkent and watched as the archer produced four small round pellets about the size of a marble from her belt. She threw them into the flames and almost immediately the fire was put out.

“Thanks for the help, guys. I really appreciate it,” he told them. “If you don’t mind me asking, how did you know how his powers worked?”

The archer shook her head, the hood of her jacket almost completely concealing the movement. “We didn’t. We had a run in with a meta who has similar powers a few weeks back and I had an idea and tested it.”

He nodded and stuck his free hand out. “I’m the Flash, by the way.”

“We know,” she returned with a wry smile, shaking his hand. “I’m Sacrifice and this is Faith.”

Barry glanced at Mahkent then back at the bank before shooting the duo a questioning look. “Did you guys know he was robbing the bank? You were here before me and I’m pretty fast.”

Faith pointed up to the roof of the bank. “We were up there when we heard the screams. Right place at the right time and all that, I guess. Fate works in funny ways if you ask me.”

Mahkent struggled in his restraints, his skin almost the same icy color of his hair now. “Can you people cut the chit chat? It’s getting annoying,” he sneered coldly.

Barry rolled his eyes. What was really annoying was dealing with metahumans trying to harm his city on a daily basis. He sighed and focused on Sacrifice. “One more thing before I go. Did the Arrow train you? Or you maybe worked with him at one time? You seem to just really know your way around a bow and arrow.”

A sad smile pulled at the corners of her lips and she slowly shook her head. “No. He didn’t train me.” She fell silent before seemingly shaking her head to herself. “It was nice to meet you, Flash, but we’ve got places to be and people to see,” she told him before she and her partner turned down the alley unseen by anyone else other than him and disappeared around the corner.

He stared at the place they had disappeared long after they were gone, Sacrifice’s cryptic answer swirling through his mind on repeat, before taking Mahkent to Star Labs.

* * *

**CC Jitters – August 17, 5:22 PM CST.**

Felicity tucked a wayward strand of hair that had escaped from her ponytail behind her ear. She waited until Esperanza had settled at the table and taken her first sip of her tea before speaking. “Earlier you told me you have something to show us.”

Esperanza nodded, brushing her dark bangs out of her eyes. “Yeah, Auggie sent me a letter about eight months after he got to Barcelona,” she responded softly, producing a large envelope from her purse. “I was surprised to get it. He told me he wouldn’t contact me while he was away, but then a courier showed up with it at work.”

She reached across and took the envelope. A pressed leaf fell to the table as she shook the folded letter from the envelope. Percy picked up the leaf and gently turned it over in his hands. “What’s this?” he asked.

“Auggie sent that with the letter,” Esperanza answered as she carefully watched Felicity over the rim of her mug. 

A frown pulled at the corners of Felicity’s mouth. “Is that it?” She turned the letter over twice in her hands before dropping it onto the table. Felicity stared at the few words on the paper, fingers drumming against the table as she thought. 

Auggie was as vague as possible in the letter. It basically told his older sister not to worry about him while simultaneously causing her worry anyway by skirting around telling her why he had left Spain. All the letter did was raise more questions than give answers. She understood the necessity for giving as little information as possible in case the message was intercepted, but it was almost impersonal except for the bit at the end where he signed _‘Love, your brother August_ ’.

Esperanza nodded again, her hands rubbing soothing circles on her very pregnant belly. “That’s all he sent me – that and that palm frond from the Amazon,” she told her, nodding at the large green leaf Percy was still holding. He handed it to his sister and she carefully turned it over in her hands before pulling out her phone and snapping a picture. “I tested it at the lab at work and I found out that it only grows along the banks of the Amazon River, but not in any specific area. I assume that it’s Auggie’s way of telling me where he’s at.”

Felicity pursed her lips at the news. “I think you’re right,” she sighed as she handed the palm frond back to her.

“Well, it looks like we’re going to the Amazon rainforest,” Percy declared just before he took a big bite out of his muffin.

**August 17, 5:56 PM CST.**

Barry stared unabashedly at the two people sitting with Esperanza San Nicolas, one of the lab technicians he worked with. They sat side-by-side facing the door of the coffee shop with their backs to the wall. He knew that they had introduced themselves to him as Fiona and Parker but something had told him that those weren’t their real names. There was something about them that he couldn’t quite put his finger on but he had ignored the feeling during that initial encounter and brushed it off as his mind playing tricks.

But looking at them now, he wasn’t quite sure.

They were dressed differently from just a few hours ago. Both were wearing dark clothes, a stark contrast from the bright colors they wore earlier, and tight leather jackets zipped all the way to their necks despite the sudden heat wave that had hit Central City over the past couple of days. The woman’s dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she was now wearing a pair of glasses. The man’s hair was combed back and the black Starling Rockets baseball cap no longer obscured his face. 

Looking at them, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He tightly closed his eyes and silently counted to ten, but when he opened his eyes again they were still there.

It was impossible but it seemed to explain their interest in the board in his lab. No one bothered to pay any attention to the thing or his insistence that Felicity and Percy Smoak had somehow escaped death despite jumping off the roof of Wayne Tower in Gotham. And there was the damning evidence of the video that had circulated over the Internet in the wake of their deaths to further make him and his theory sound crazy. But that video only proved to make everything clearer in his eyes when it had suddenly disappeared around the same time as their death certificates like it had never existed in the first place.

Everyone he knew thought he was in denial except for the two strangers who seemed interested in his investigation.

And then there were those two people who had helped him take down Icicle earlier at the bank. They didn’t fit in anywhere with his theory. The archer – or Sacrifice as she had called herself – she was fast and deadly, a combination he wouldn’t ever associate with Felicity Smoak. She had skills that rivaled Oliver’s and a certain fluidity that mimicked him in her movements despite telling him that Starling’s Emerald Archer didn’t train her.

His brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed as he thought back to that final exchange. Oliver may not have trained her, but she didn’t deny working with him in the past and that was enough confirmation for him – that and the fact that the two people he was now looking at were dressed the same as Sacrifice and Faith sans weapons.

He might be missing some – probably _all_ – of the facts, but at least he knew he wasn’t crazy and seeing things. 

There was no denying that Felicity Smoak and her brother were alive.

Almost two hours ago they helped the Flash take down a metahuman bank robber under the secret identities of Sacrifice and Faith. Before that they had shown up at his lab using the aliases of Fiona and Parker – both names that used their real initials – asking to speak with the sister of one of the people they had ‘died’ with. Now they were sitting less than forty feet away from him drinking coffee and eating what were probably Jitter’s famous blueberry muffins with said sister.

Looking at the woman, Barry imagined that she was blonde and wearing a bright colored dress instead of the dark hair and clothes she wore now, a dramatic change in what he remembered about Felicity.

“Barry!”

He jumped in his seat in surprise and turned to meet warm brown eyes filled with laughter. “Iris!” he exclaimed. “When did you get here?” he asked, leaning across the table to press a kiss to her mouth that she was quick to return.

Iris grinned at him endearingly. “A couple minutes ago.” She broke off a piece of his untouched muffin and popped it in her mouth. “You have that look on your face when you know something’s right, but can’t figure out why,” she observed, reaching out to hold the hand resting on the table. “Is everything okay, Bear?”

Barry scooped up her hand in both of his, the diamond solitaire of her engagement ring sparkling in the light. He absentmindedly played with her fingers as he thought while she patiently waited for him to speak. Finally, he nodded toward behind her. “Do you see those two people over there?” he murmured softly.

She peeked over her shoulder in the direction he indicated and nodded. “What about them?”

He tightened his grip around her hand. “I think that’s Felicity and her brother.” Right on cue, Iris attempted to pull away from him.

“Barry—”

“No. Hear me out, Iris,” he insisted, eyes beseeching her to listen to him. Her shoulders slumped in defeat. She couldn’t resist those green eyes of his. “I know it sounds crazy. But look at her and tell me you don’t see Felicity sitting there.” 

Iris sighed and cautiously turned to look at the woman. At first glance, all she saw was a stranger who didn’t particularly stand out amongst the people in Jitters, but she took the time to really look at her. In her mind’s eye, she imagined that she was blonde and the picture was startling. With her dark hair pulled back into her signature ponytail and the bright pink lipstick she wore, there was no denying the truth.

“Oh, my god,” she breathed.

He nodded, following her gaze. “Do you think I should tell Oliver?” he asked suddenly.

Iris’ hand tightened in his. “I don’t know, Barry. He mourned her for a long time and he seemed better the last time we saw him. What if there’s a reason why she faked her death?”

Barry frowned slightly. That was true. What if Felicity had a reason for lying to her friends, to her family? A lot of effort was put into covering it all up so that it looked real after all. All of the news coverage that was done and the numerous diplomatic interviews Bruce Wayne had given in the wake of the tragic event that had occurred on one of his properties. But she had come to Central City knowing that there was a high probability that they would cross paths.

If she knew that, then she knew that there was the chance that he would recognize her and she took it anyway.

“Maybe,” he said finally. “But I think I should tell him. If you were out there somewhere and somebody knew, I would want to know.”

* * *

**Starling City, California.**

**Queen Consolidated – August 17, 4:31 PM PST.**

Roy absentmindedly picked up the phone and held it to his ear as he finished making adjustments to Oliver’s schedule for next week. He couldn’t wait until it was five and he could get out of his monkey suit. Just twenty-nine more minutes and he was home free.

“Oliver Queen’s office, this is Roy. How may I help you?” He had barely gotten the words out before the familiar voice of Barry Allen came tumbling over the line in a jumbled mess that he could barely understand. Roy sighed and leaned back in his seat, already tired. “Barry. Slow down. I didn’t understand a thing you just said to me.”

“I know this’ll sound crazy, but I just saw Felicity. Actually, I basically saw her all day today. She came to the lab and then I saw her again at Jitters,” Barry repeated, making sure to enunciate each of his words slowly. “Is Oliver around? I’ve been trying his cell, but he hasn’t been answering and his office line is busy.”

 _No,_ Roy thought, a cold sweat building at the back of his neck. Felicity had told him there was a slight chance this would happen, but he didn’t believe her. He didn’t want to. And now that it was staring him the face it was too late to do anything other than to make the man think he was crazy and hope and pray that he wouldn’t tell Oliver.

Glancing through the glass, Roy made sure Oliver was still on the phone before turning his chair to face away so he couldn’t see him anymore.

He sighed noisily and anxiously dragged a hand through his hair as he mustered up the energy for what he was about to do. “Barry, we’ve had this discussion before in case you’ve forgotten – _because I haven’t._ Oliver tried to kill you last year for even suggesting that she was alive despite all of the so-called ‘proof’ you showed him. It took me, Digg, and Laurel to drag him off of you! So unless you want a repeat of that, I suggest you keep this to yourself, Allen!” he hissed before slamming the phone back on the receiver.

Roy stared at the phone for a full minute. When it didn’t ring again he let out a sigh of relief and sagged back into his desk chair.

_Crisis averted. Thank god…_

He sat there for a few minutes longer before turning off the computer and dropping his tablet into his messenger bag. Hefting it onto his shoulder, Roy made his way to Oliver’s office and knocked gently on the door before opening it. “Hey,” he said, “I’m going to head out. I’ll meet you at Verdant tonight.”

Oliver stared at him before slowly nodding. “Okay. I just have to sign these contracts before I go,” he told him, tapping the small stack of papers in front of him. 

Roy nodded and turned to go but paused when Oliver called him back. “Yeah?”

“Who called while I was on the phone?”

He froze in the doorway before forcing himself to turn. “Wrong number,” he told him, rocking back on his heels. “Just somebody trying to order a pizza.”

**August 17, 5:14 PM PST.**

A strong, sudden breeze kicked up in his office and Oliver merely dropped his hand on the pile of papers that had threatened to take flight off his desk.

“Oliver.”

At Barry’s urgent tone, he looked up. “What’s wrong? What happened?” Oliver asked, taking in the strange expression on the speedster’s face. “What’s wrong?” he repeated more forcefully, standing from his desk.

Barry said nothing and stepped closer, drawing an envelope from inside his jacket and dropping it onto the desk between them. “Iris and I took these an hour ago at Jitters,” he said, that strange look still on his face.

Oliver snatched up the envelope from his desk and pulled out a set of pictures. He quickly thumbed through them and felt the world start to tilt around him. Barry was at his side in a flash and helped him back into his chair.

“No,” he breathed, shaking his head. His fist tightly clenched around the picture in his hand. “No. That’s impossible. She’s gone, Barry. She’s gone…”

The picture slipped from between his fingers and landed next to the frame on his desk. 

They were the same but different. 

Whether she was blonde or brunette, it didn’t matter.

There was no mistaking that carefree, unguarded smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! See you in 2016, guys!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Wednesday! 
> 
> Here's an actual BRAND NEW chapter! If you were previously unaware, all of the others were written months ago. I’m so glad so many of you love this story! I had a major troll problem for the longest time and it helps to know that people actually like it, so thank you! :)
> 
> Lots of stuff happening this chapter. I’ve got a lot to say but later. Meet you at the bottom, lovelies.

**Las Vegas, Nevada.**

**Donna Smoak’s House – August 22, 1:02 PM PST.**

Oliver rapped his knuckles against the bright teal door and waited. He heard soft footfalls against the floor accompanied by Donna’s cheery voice.

“Coming!” he heard her call out.

The door flew open a few seconds later with Donna on the other side. She had her phone pressed to her ear and Oliver noticed the almost imperceptible falter in her smile before it widened again.

“You two be careful out there and make sure you come back in one piece for me, okay?” she told the person she was talking to. “I have to go, baby. I have a very handsome man with some of the bluest baby blues I’ve ever seen on my doorstep demanding for some of my time. Love you.” Donna made kissing noises before hanging up.

She smiled up at Oliver but something seemed fake about it, he noted. “Oliver! What a surprise, sweetie. I wasn’t expecting you until December, or until maybe January around Felicity’s birthday,” she said, moving in to wrap her arms around him. He stiffly returned the hug, awkwardly patting her back, before pulling away.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

Donna nodded. “Of course,” she said, stepping back. “Do you want anything to drink or eat, maybe? I just made some tea to go with these little apricot thumbprint cookies I got at the bakery this morning.”

“No, thank you, I’m okay, Donna.” She gave him a smile before linking her arm with his and leading them into the living room. Donna lightly patted his shoulder before disappearing into the kitchen.

While she was gone, Oliver’s gaze traveled around the room and he was surprised to find that everything was different. The walls were no longer painted bright turquoise, but rather a pale lavender color with cream trim and the previously mismatched furniture was gone, replaced with a set of cream and teak wood furniture. The picture frames that once sat on an end table beside the sofa were now across the room beside the urns. Half burnt candles sat beside them and hanging above the table on the wall was a large family portrait of Donna, Felicity and Percy taken the night of Percy’s college grad party.

Donna breezed back into the room, mug of tea in one hand and a plate in the other. She gently placed the plate on the coffee table before sitting beside him. “So, what can I do for you, sweetie?” she asked as she sipped from her mug, bright blue eyes studying him over the rim.

Oliver stared at her, taking in her relaxed pose and easy smile, and wondered if she knew. “A friend of mine came to visit me from Central City a few days ago,” he started. Beside him, Donna’s fingers twitched around her mug. “He showed me these.” Oliver opened the envelope Barry had given him and offered Donna the pictures.

Donna eyed them like they were going to bite her and made no move to take them. “What are they?” she whispered.

“Just look,” he insisted and he gently took the mug from her hands and gave her the pictures. She slowly started to flip through them and Oliver closely watched her. He expected her to burst into tears and tell him this was all a lie, that those people weren’t her children. He expected Donna to lash out at him in anger and denial, call him a liar and throw him out of her home.

But he didn't expect this.

Donna clutched at one of the pictures as she breathed shallowly. "When were these taken, Oliver?" she murmured, slowly looking up to meet his gaze. There was no sadness or anger, not even happiness, in her eyes.

She knew, he realized.

He frowned at her. "Five days ago in Central City."

She nodded slowly as she dropped the pictures on the coffee table. "I-I don't know what to say...it looks like them...but, Oliver..." Donna shook her head and placed a hand on his, a sympathetic smile pulling at the corners of her bright pink lips. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but I don’t think that’s them.”

Oliver snatched his hand away and stood. He strode purposefully across the room and snatched up one of the picture frames from off the table before stalking back over to her. Donna stared wide-eyed up at him as he held the frame side-by-side with one of the photos Barry gave him so she could see.

“Look me in the eye, Donna, and tell me that isn’t her,” he demanded. “Tell me that isn’t your daughter and son. Tell me that isn’t Felicity!”

Donna bit her lip and looked away, unable to meet his gaze. “I can’t,” she mumbled.

Oliver slowly sat back down beside her, the pictures slipping from his fingers and back onto the coffee table. He couldn’t believe it. Felicity really was alive after all these years. For three years he had thought she was dead and it had killed him, turning him into an impossibly darker, more volatile person than he had thought possible. If he hadn’t had Diggle to guide him and the memory of Felicity haunting him every minute of every day, he was sure he would have reverted back into The Hood and started killing again.

But to know that the last three years were a lie—it hurt.

“Why did she fake her death?” he asked lowly, unable to bring his voice above a whisper.

It was silent for so long he thought she wasn’t going to answer him but then she spoke. “To protect you.”

Oliver stared at her, incredulous. “What?”

Donna’s eyes darted across his face, searching. “She explained it to me, all of it, but you should hear it from her. I promise you, Oliver, that Felicity did everything that she did to protect you and everyone else she loves.” She slowly reached out and wiped away the lone tear that had slipped down his face. “I’m so sorry, sweetie,” she whispered, gathering him into her arms.

* * *

**Amazon Rainforest, South America – September 1, 9:12 AM local time.**

“You know, Felicity, that crystal Klarion gave you is a real piece of shit,” Percy remarked, his tone conversational. He swung his arm in a wide arc, hand tightening around the handle of his machete as he slashed at the tall grasses as he led them along their path. “The damn thing has been sending us up and down the river for almost two weeks. Are you sure that thing even works?”

Felicity rolled her eyes and pulled her knife from the holster strapped to her thigh. “I’m sure. Auggie must be using the river somehow.” She held the sharp edge of the blade out and quickly examined it against the filtered green light before bringing it down against the skin of her arm. A hiss rattled through her teeth as she cut into her flesh causing dark red blood to ooze from the long incision she had made and stand out against her pale flesh.

A blue bandana was abruptly thrust into her face and she gratefully took it from Drew, quickly wrapping the fabric around the wound. “Thanks,” she muttered.

“No problem, F.”

Percy glanced over his shoulder just as his arm came down and the blade cut down more grass. His gaze zeroed in on the makeshift bandage. “What the hell, Felicity,” he said, shaking his head to himself.

“Shiva was getting too close again. A little blood and pain on my part will keep her away from us for a little while. She’ll be chased by a few things if we’re lucky,” she murmured distractedly, glancing around Drew’s tall frame for Lady Shiva’s dark hair again.

“Again!” Percy groaned just as Drew asked, “How could you tell?”

Felicity met his gaze after a second and the corners of her mouth pulled up in a humorless smile. “Let’s just say that I’ve become a pro at spotting her over the last few months and let’s leave it at that.” Drew nodded slowly and she turned away.

The three of them continued through the trees following the latest location the crystal had stopped in silence except for the whistle of the blade as it came down to cut the grasses and the sound of flapping wings and the occasional caw of a bird as it flew past them. Occasionally, a small animal would make an appearance before skittering away once it noticed them. They’d been walking for nearly two hours when Percy broke the silence.

“So, Drew, we never asked…” he trailed off, glancing slightly over his shoulder and past Felicity at him.

Drew raised a questioning brow at Felicity, but she shrugged and shook her head. She had no clue what her brother was about to ask. “What?”

“How was your week with Mary in Gotham? We kinda just demanded you hop a plane and help us find Auggie and didn’t get the chance to ask before we were getting chased by panthers and attacked by snakes and hunted by the natives,” Percy said apologetically, cutting down more grass with his machete.

“It was good. She really helped pull me out of the black hole I had dropped myself into,” he sighed. “I’m not back where I should be yet, but I’m almost there. Being out here, helping you guys find Auggie – doing something productive – is helping me get there though. I’m almost as hopeful as I was before the fall.” Drew smiled bashfully, dragging a hand through his hair.

Felicity reached out and gently squeezed his upper arm with a warm smile. “That’s wonderful, Drew.”

Percy suddenly stopped, the arm holding the machete dropping limply to his side as he turned to face the others. His eyes quickly darted around them as he searched their surroundings. "I don't think we're alone anymore," he whispered softly. Felicity was inclined to agree. The sounds of the rainforest had suddenly silenced completely. Before it was just a low murmur that surrounded them on all sides, now it was quiet like somebody had turned the volume on their television down as low as it could go without being completely put on mute. 

"I think Shiva's caught up," she murmured lowly. 

She gently pulled the map from her brother's pocket and the crystal from around her neck. The rock glowed bright and dragged itself across the paper before stopping on the last marking she had made earlier that morning. Felicity dropped the crystal over her brother's head and shoved the map into his free hand while pushing Drew to stand beside him.  "Keep going," she ordered. "We're not far away from where Auggie's at. I'll deal with Lady Shiva." Drew nodded without question, but the hesitation was clear on Percy's face. She gave him a reassuring look. "I'll be fine. Have a little faith in me."

"I always have faith in you, Felicity," he quipped with a smirk. “Just be careful,” he warned before turning away and continuing through the brush with Drew close on his heels.

Felicity lingered there for a beat longer before walking a few paces back in the direction they had come and pressing herself tight behind the wide, thick trunk of one of the tall looming trees surrounding her. With the way things had been going, it looked like a fight was inevitable. Silently, she pulled her knife from her leg and attached it to the arm of her bow. She only had to wait for a beat before Lady Shiva appeared, the assassin slowly advancing toward the tree Felicity had taken shelter behind.

“Come quietly and this won’t hurt as much,” Shiva spit out, her voice echoing in the silence. “Once I bring you to him again, he’ll finally tell me where my daughter, my Cassandra, is.” Slowly, she circled around the trunk of the tree and Felicity moved with her before diving behind an adjacent tree.

Felicity replayed Shiva’s words in her head and froze in shock. “Cassandra?” she called out, stepping out from behind the tree. “Shiva, I know where she is.”

Shiva’s eyes narrowed as she spotted Felicity. “What?” she snarled lowly, unsheathing her daggers from her back. “No, that’s impossible!”

“I know exactly where she is, I swear,” she tried to convince her.

“Lies!” Shiva hissed and she attacked. Felicity reacted immediately, throwing her bow up and deflecting the blades.

The two engaged in a deadly dance, trading blow after blow. The assassin made to stab and slash at Felicity, throwing in the occasional kick, but she deflected and blocked each before countering. She struck out with the arm of her bow in wide arcs, sending the blade down on Shiva and drawing blood every time she connected, and following up with a kick of her own.

Shiva drove her daggers up, attempting to gut her, but Felicity grabbed the blade off her bow before blocking and deflecting with the arm. The assassin stumbled and she drove her knee into her stomach and kicking out at the last second while simultaneously driving her blade into her shoulder. Shiva cried out, stumbling on her feet as she backed into a tree, before quickly recovering and violently pulling the knife from her flesh. She regained her grip on her daggers to attack and Felicity put a stop to that, quickly firing off an arrow. Cables deployed from the arrowhead and trapped Lady Shiva to the tree.

Sure that the assassin wasn’t going anywhere any time soon, Felicity collapsed her bow and clipped it to the small of her back before taking the time to find her knife and put it back in its holster. Tense minutes passed as she watched Shiva attempt to break her bonds to no avail.

She sighed to herself and leaned against the trunk of the tree closest to Lady Shiva. “She was being held in Nanda Parbat and trained to be Ra’s bodyguard,” Felicity started, crossing her arms. “They were calling her ‘Who Is All’.”

Lady Shiva stilled at her words, slowly looking up to meet Felicity’s gaze. “Where is she? Where is my daughter?” she whispered.

“Cassandra’s in Gotham City, safe with Batman. The last I heard she was calling herself Black Bat and is acting as one of his partners,” she told her, thinking back to the last time she checked in on Bruce before they left for the Amazon. “When my brother and I left Nanda Parbat, we took her away with us to get her away from Ra’s and sent her to Batman. She – Cassandra – told us what she had done as a little girl when she grew up with David Cain. He had trained her from when she was a baby as a prodigy in martial arts, and when he thought that she was ready, he took her on a hit with him. She had thought it was a game, but she watched as the man died by her hand. It changed her and when she refused to kill again, David beat her and left her with the League, with Ra’s. She was eight, Sandra.”

Tears ran down the assassin’s face as she cried. “My sole purpose these past sixteen years was to find my daughter. That’s all I’ve wanted,” she wept. “David Cain ruined my life. I thought he loved me, but the moment Cassandra was born, he took her away from me. The one good thing I had and he took her away, further turning me into this vengeful assassin after I learned that he was the one to kill my sister.” A bitter look crossed her face as she glared into the forest before focusing back on Felicity.

“My payment for taking you to the Demon was information on Cassandra’s whereabouts. He never told me and when I learned that you and your brother had been released, I thought it was a test. If I brought you to him again, then he would finally tell me where she was.”

Felicity let out a humorless laugh and shook her head, pushing off from her tree. “Sandra, he never intended to tell you. Ra’s wanted to keep her and mold her into the perfect assassin. No matter what you did for him, he was never going to tell you,” she said, cutting Shiva loose.

Lady Shiva stared at Felicity. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Felicity shrugged. It was Ra’s al Ghul’s fault and they both knew it. The Demon was a heartless, selfish bastard who didn’t care if other people got hurt in his conquest for whatever evil plan he had concocted.

The rustling of leaves behind them caused Felicity to still, hand moving to the handle of her knife. She counted to three before pivoting and tossing the blade. A wooden staff suddenly shot out and smacked the knife away, sending it flying into the trunk of a tree. Felicity followed the arm connected to the staff and a wide grin spread across her face. He had a thick beard that obscured most of his face, long hair that was pulled back in a low ponytail, and was dressed in a plain T-shirt and cargo pants, but there was no mistaking the man.

“Auggie!” she exclaimed.

“Hello, Felicity,” he said with a grin, pulling her into a tight embrace. They pulled apart and Auggie grasped Felicity by the shoulder. “It’s good to see you again, _chica._ It’s been awhile.”

She nodded with a tired sigh, scrubbing away the sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand. “Yeah, it has been.”

“Percy told me it’s safe to return to the land of the living, so I say it’s time to get my wife from Paris. From what I understand, her parents’ house has turned into Fort Knox,” he said with a worried frown.

“It has,” she agreed, the corners of her mouth turning down as she thought of all the extra security, “but don’t worry. We’ve got a plan.”

Auggie offered her a soft smile. “I don’t doubt that you do,” he murmured, lightly squeezing her shoulder before releasing her.

She glanced around them at the lush green trees and foliage of the rainforest with a questioning smile. “I see Spain didn’t work out.”

“Ah, no, unfortunately it did not,” he sighed sadly. “Let’s say that something similar to yours and Drew’s stories happened to me as well.”

Percy stepped around them, eyes darting to look around behind his sister. “Not that I’m complaining, Feliss, but what happened to Lady Shiva?” he asked, kicking at the cut cables around the base of the tree.

Felicity whipped around and looked in vain for the assassin, but it was useless. She was gone. All that was left were the broken cables and a torn piece of the red silk lining of Shiva’s coat. “Gone,” she sighed, meeting Percy’s gaze. “I let her go.” Her brother stared at her in shocked silence, mouth agape. She watched his mouth move as he tried to form the words to say something but nothing came.

“Why?” Drew asked, crouching low beside the tree as he fingered the scrap of red fabric.

“Because the only reason she agreed to hunt us was because Ra’s al Ghul agreed to give her daughter Cassandra to her,” she told them.

Recognition lit up her brother’s eyes and a stunned expression crossed his face. “You mean Cassandra Cain, right? The same Cassandra we got out of Nanda Parbat? Black Bat? Bruce’s new ward?” he asked, rattling off each question at her in rapid succession. She nodded once, walking over and yanking her knife out of the tree trunk and replacing it in its holster. “Wow,” he breathed, “Ra’s is an even bigger asshole than I originally thought—and I already thought he was a massive one. All the woman wanted was her daughter and he wouldn’t give her to her even though she’d brought us to him. What a fucking dick.”

“I know.”

“Wait,” Drew interjected, eyes flicking to look between the brother and sister. “You guys didn’t say that you’d been taken to Nanda Parbat. If he had you, then how did you escape and why did he call off the League?”

Percy and Felicity shared a look and her brother shrugged helplessly. “It’s a long story. And we’ll tell you on the way to France. Promise.”

* * *

**Paris, France – September 7, 8:45 PM local time.**

“On my mark…Three…two…one.”

Felicity quickly cut the power from her tablet. “We’ve got less than two minutes before the generator kicks on,” she warned as she watched for movement. A murmur of acknowledgement sounded over the comm link as she vaulted herself over the tall wrought iron fence.

Two guards came rushing at her, angrily yelling at her in French. Neither was carrying any weapons, but Felicity knew better. She sprinted toward them and quickly launched herself at them. Felicity dodged blasts of white energy that one guard threw at her from his hands and dropped to the ground just as the other spit some kind of green acid at her that hit the ground and started to smoke and burn. She quickly rolled away before kicking out at both guards and sweeping their legs out from under them.

They hit the ground and before they even had the chance to recover, Felicity slammed a flechette filled with tranquilizer into each of their chests. A beat passed and once she was sure they were out cold, she quickly made her way across the lawn until she stood beneath the balcony on the east side of the large house. Felicity jumped and swung her body up before slipping inside just as the generator kicked on.

The radio crackled as she stalked across the dark room, compound bow drawn at the ready. Felicity stood beside the door, her back pressed against the wall, and waited. The lights flickered once, twice, three times before staying on for good followed by the sound of pounding footsteps in the hallway outside the room as someone came running. Seconds later the door burst open and Felicity slammed her bow into the guard’s stomach before sweeping their legs out from beneath them. The guard hit the ground hard with a grunt, white blond hair spilling out of the severe bun she had tied it in.

Without warning, the guard grabbed Felicity by the ankle and brought her down, bow flying out of her hand. Felicity slammed her elbow into the woman’s chest twice and rolled away as a snowstorm suddenly started to brew in the room. Realization prickled at her skin as Felicity realized this was the ice-based meta and she scrambled to get the arrows she had built over the last couple days from her quiver. She grabbed them, one in each hand, before slamming the arrowheads into the floorboards at the feet of the guard where she stood. A ring of sharp flames formed around the woman and Felicity dove out of the room into the hall as the storm immediately stopped.

“Try and put that out. I dare you,” she challenged. The woman snarled at her, spitting out curses in French.

Felicity scooped up her bow and cautiously made her way down the hallway. The radio crackled again followed by Percy’s voice. “First floor’s clear. The four guards are down,” he reported. “I’m moving onto the second floor, Sacrifice.”

“Acknowledged,” she responded. “I’ve already taken down one guard. There’s probably another up here somewhere. Meet me at the top of the stairs.”

Another guard stood on the landing with his back to the stairs, radio in hand, frantically calling for help. Coming up behind him, Felicity spotted her brother. He met her gaze and lifted his arm for her to see the tranquilizer gun in his hand. She nodded once, nocking an arrow as she silently moved down the hallway toward the guard.

Drawing back her arm, Felicity shouted “Hey!” as she sprinted down the hall. The guard let out a sharp yelp of surprise and scrambled to grab his gun from his belt. She rolled her eyes and released her arrow. Cables burst from the arrowhead and wrapped around his legs, forcing him to lose his balance and fall backward. Percy caught him, locking an arm around the guard’s chest and trapping his arms to his sides. The guard struggled against his hold, but Percy held tight as he quickly injected the tranquilizer in his neck. Automatically, the man fell slack in his hold and he gently laid him down on the floor.

She pushed her hood off her head and collapsed her bow before clipping it at the small of her back. “Devotion, the first and second floors are clear,” Felicity informed Auggie as Percy stood.

 _“Buena,”_ Auggie murmured. “Hope and I cleared the third floor. Meet us on the fourth.”

Felicity and Percy each agreed and quickly made their way up there. Drew met them at the top of the stairs, taking apart his own tranquilizer gun. He tucked away the pieces into his leather jacket before looking up.

“How do you feel?” Felicity asked him as they made their way down the hall to where Auggie hovered. She eyed him closely, looking for any signs of regression. He was fine in the Amazon, but once they got to Paris, she caught him staring listlessly out the windows of the hotel a handful of times in the past four days as they prepped for tonight. There were a couple times she thought they were going to have to put him on a plane and send him off to Gotham again.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, one corner of his mouth pulling up in a half smile. “How many times are you going to ask me that?”

“As many times I have to,” she said.

Both corners of Drew’s mouth ticked up into a real smile as he buried his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I’m fine, Felicity. And don’t worry – I’m just not saying that. I really mean it,” he reassured her, dragging a hand through his hair. “Now that I know it’s all over now, I feel better about the future. Hopefully, really, that it’ll be better than before.”

She stared at him through narrowed eyes before nodding. “I hope so, too, Drew.”

The three of them stopped beside Auggie where he stood in front of a set of closed double doors at the end of the hall. Felicity peeled her mask away from her face and tucked it into her jacket before replacing it with her glasses. Beside her, Percy pushed his hood back and shoved his goggles to rest on top of his head while Drew wiped at the paint around his eyes to remove it.

She patted Auggie’s arm with a gloved hand and offered the older man a smile. “Ready to see your wife again?”

He let out a deep breath and nodded vigorously. “Yeah, yeah, I am,” he breathed out with a smile of his own.

Without much preamble, Auggie opened the doors. Almost immediately, two objects went flying through the air aimed at their heads. Percy easily plucked them out of the air before either could hurt them and Felicity realized that a pair of sai had been thrown at them. She eyed the sharpened points and the thick black leather and dark magenta silk wrapped around the handles of the familiar double-pronged twin metal batons.

“Um, those are Gabriella’s,” Drew murmured from behind her.

“Mhm. I know,” she hummed under her breath, now scanning the lavish room for signs of Gabriella.

Auggie stepped into the room, eyes frantically searching for his wife. “Gabriella?” he called out. “Gabriella, _mi vida_?”

A woman dressed in a white sleeping gown that brushed against her ankles when she walked stepped into the doorway of the adjoining room. Felicity felt her eyes widen in shock as she stared at her. She didn’t know which was more surprising – the fact that Gabriella’s long hair was now cotton candy pink or that she was holding a little girl in her arms.

“Gabby, is that you?” Percy asked, the confusion clear in his voice.

The woman nodded once uncertainly and Felicity could see the glistening of unshed tears in her pale green eyes. “Yes,” she whispered softly, unable to tear her gaze from her husband.

Auggie slowly made his way to his wife until they stood less than a foot apart. “Hi,” he whispered, voice cracking on the single syllable.

“Hi,” she whispered back.

They stared at each other for a long moment before his gaze drifted to the small child asleep in her arms. “Who is this?” he asked softly.

“Our daughter, _mon cœur_ ,” Gabriella murmured back, carefully watching his face.

He stared at her in shocked disbelief. “But the fall, Gabby, we died…then how?”

She gave him a sad smile. “The Witch Boy told me there was something strange about the way I woke up after he restored my life. He said I glowed bright pink and…that he could feel a strong wave of _love_ coming off of me,” she whispered. “And after I had been here for a couple of weeks, I started to feel sick and my hair started to turn pink. Maman looked at me and said that I was pregnant when I died. Because he didn’t know, Klarion only restored my life and not the baby’s, so my magic, my _love_ , gave our child life again.” Gabriella fingered the pink strands of her hair. “The side effect of that caused my hair to permanently turn this color.”

Auggie swallowed thickly, tears flowing down his cheeks. “What’s her name?”

“Valentina,” Gabriella sighed happily, stroking the girl’s dark hair as she stared up at her husband. “Valentina Isabelle San Nicolas.”

Felicity linked her arm with her brother’s and they slowly crossed the room with Drew close on their heels. A wide smile lit up her face as she watched as Auggie pressed a kiss to the crown of his daughter’s head before drawing Gabriella into his arms, their little girl snug between them, and kissing her.

She rested her head on Percy’s shoulder. “They look so happy,” she murmured.

“Yeah, they do,” he agreed.

The couple pulled apart and turned to the others, happiness shining bright on their faces in the twinkle in their eyes and the blush on their cheeks. A part of Felicity envied them, of how easy it was for them to reunite after almost three years of separation. Any reunions of hers were going to be full of yelling and screaming and tears – lots and lots of tears – and it was going to be undeniably hard for everyone. Roy’s reaction to hearing the truth was most likely going to be a cakewalk compared to whatever explosive one Oliver was going to have.

From the moment she had first stepped foot in Starling, she had run scenario after scenario through her head of how it would go and all of them ended badly. Everyone was going to get hurt regardless of how it went.

She could only hope that he understood her sacrifice.

The sound of Drew’s voice pulled her from her dark thoughts. “So all that extra security was for this little one, huh?” he asked, gently running the back of his fingers across the apple of Valentina’s cheek where she now rested in Auggie’s protective grip.

Gabriella nodded against her husband’s shoulder, only tearing her gaze away from Auggie’s face long enough to look at him. “Yeah, my parent’s hired all those metahuman’s from around the country after a few of Ra’s assassins tried to break in. Then Département Gamma pulled them in from early retirement about a year and a half ago, putting them in black ops missions again, and then they hired even more metas since they couldn’t stay with us all the time like before. So it’s just been me, Valentina, and enough metahuman bodyguards to protect a small nation.”

“Well, I don’t think you need so this much protection anymore, Gabriella,” Percy told her, “Since Ra’s isn’t going to be a problem anymore.”

The older woman’s brow furrowed in confusion and a look of disbelief crossed her face. “Since when?” she asked, looking at each of their unsurprised faces.

A smile broke out across Felicity’s face and she pulled away from her brother to take Gabriella’s hands in her own. “Officially? Since July. Unofficially? Sometime in May. Come on, we’ll tell you all about everything you’ve missed.”

* * *

**Starling City, California.**

**Starling Metro Police Department – September 8, 7:49 PM PST.**

Laurel nervously paced the length of the sidewalk in front of the police department.

It had been nearly a month since she had called Sacrifice and every day she had been struggling to tell her father about Sara. She knew she had to tell him, but every time she worked up the courage to say the words she would freeze up and change the subject. And each time she failed, the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach grew and grew and she hated herself.

Sara's death was still a sore subject between her and her dad, even more so with her mom. And to tell her father that what happened to his baby girl wasn't an accident like they were told was going to hurt him. To think it was anything but an accident would devastate him.

Uniformed officers and plainclothes detectives gave ADA Lance a wide berth as she continued to pace anxiously across the sidewalk. She could tell some of them wanted to approach her, but anytime one so much as looked at her, she gave them a firm glare and they kept on walking like they never saw her.

"Miss Lance?"

Laurel turned at the sound of her name and spotted a uniform standing behind her. "Yes..." She squinted at his nametag. "Officer Martinez. How may I help you?"

Officer Martinez nodded back towards the door behind him. "Captain Lance is wondering if you're okay, Miss Lance. He sent me out here to bring you up to his office. Said you've been out here for nearly an hour now."

Surprised, Laurel merely nodded and followed Officer Martinez inside. Once they were standing outside her father's office, Martinez gave two quick raps of his knuckles against the door before opening it and sticking his head inside. Seconds later he stepped back before waving her in. She gave him a tight smile. “Thanks.” Martinez gave her a nod before walking away.

Laurel stepped into her father’s office, making sure to close the door behind her. She watched as her dad’s eyes lit up upon seeing her and she idly wondered how long it would take for that look to turn disappear once she told him as he quickly finished his call.

“Laurel,” he greeted her warmly, standing and walking around his desk to pull her into his arms in a hug. He pressed a quick kiss to her cheek before pulling away. “Now, do you want to tell me what you were doing pacing the sidewalk like a madwoman for, sweetheart? I was getting worried.”

She bit her lip. “I think you should sit, Dad.” She was here and she wasn’t going to back out now. Too much time had passed and keeping this secret from him was becoming a burden that she didn’t think she could handle carrying with her anymore.

His eyebrows raised high on his forehead at her words. “Laurel, what’s wrong?”

Laurel took him by the arm and guided him to one of the chairs in front of his desk before sitting beside him. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to stay calm as she attempted to find the words to tell him, to keep the panic and the instinct to back out at bay. “Dad. There’s something that I need to tell you, but I don’t know how you’re going to take it,” she started, keeping her voice steady.

He gave a slow nod of his head, keeping his eyes on her face. “Okay…”

She forced herself to take another deep breath. “It—it’s about Sara.” Already she could see his defenses rising as he stiffened and tensed in his seat, but thankfully, he stayed silent. “About a month ago, the night I brought you the drug dealer, I went up on the roof here at the station. I expected to be alone, but there were two masked people already there.”

“Who were they?” he suddenly cut in.

Laurel glanced up from her lap at him. “Remember the muggers that were found tied up in the Glades with the signs that said ‘Arrest me’ taped to their chests?”

“The vics said that a couple of new vigilantes, a male and a female, saved them. One was an archer and the other had a samurai sword. Both dressed in black leather.” He leveled her with a hard stare and slowly shook his head. “Please, don’t tell me…”

“It was them.”

“Laurel!” he thundered.

She winced and shrugged helplessly. “I know. I was going to take them down when I found them up there, but then the woman said she knew Sara, knew that she was _my_ sister. She knew who I was even though I was in my suit. And Dad, she knew Sara’s name—the one she’d taken when she joined the League. Called her Ta-er al-Safer.” Laurel sighed, reaching out to take her father’s hand. He wasn’t going to like this next part, but there was no way around it. She’d spent too much time trying to tell him and failing.

“Dad, she told me that Sara’s death wasn’t an accident.” There. It was finally out there. Now he knew.

His hand stilled beneath hers and all he could do was stare at his daughter. She watched in silence as he attempted to say something several times, unable to find the words, until he finally spoke. “Laurel. That woman was lying to you. Nyssa—Nyssa told us what happened to her. _It was an accident._ ”

She was already shaking her head. “No, it wasn’t. Nyssa told us what she thought was the truth, Dad. That woman was there when Sara died. She held her as she died. Sara’s last words were for us, to tell us that she loved us and that she was sorry.”

A choked sob tore from her father’s throat and she couldn’t hold back her tears anymore. He pulled her into his arms and Laurel curled her arms around his shoulders, burying her face into his neck as she cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mi vida = my life
> 
> Mon cœur = my heart
> 
> Département Gamma is a French covert ops organization in the DC universe.
> 
> In the comics, Cassandra Cain is the daughter of Lady Shiva (Sandra Wu-San) and David Cain. Her history here is similar to that of what’s in the comics except David Cain didn’t leave her with the League—she ran away from him and spent years homeless and wandering around the world. Cass eventually made it to Gotham City and, under Oracle and Batman, became the next Batgirl.
> 
> So, this is the last chapter of the first act. 
> 
> The next time we meet it’ll be in the past and it’s going to be emotional and be painful, with some mentions of torture. I’m giving you fair warning now so that you’ll have an idea of what’s coming next when the next chapter pops up. After that eye-opening chapter, we’ll delve into the aftermath of Oliver learning that Felicity’s really alive and she was three feet away from him the last time he saw her. And then there’s dealing with the arsonist that’s been hinted at so many times/telling Laurel what really happened to her sister stuff. Plus a whole bunch of other fun stuff before the third and final act.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback to 2017 leading up to months before Batman and Robin found Felicity in Budapest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Wednesday, lovelies!
> 
> This is just one big flashback chapter that prefaces the second act of the story where Felicity gets justice for Canary’s murder. And FYI I’m using the comic book location of Nanda Parbat instead of the Arrow one where it’s hidden beneath the Hindu Kush. Tibet just works out better considering the path they took afterward.

**Bangkok, Thailand.  
** **June 2017.**

Percy panted, out of breath from their unscheduled run. “Did we lose them?”

She quickly tapped the side of her mask, switching from night vision to thermal imaging, and scanned the area behind them. No heat signatures were picked up, but that didn’t mean that one of them was off hiding in the shadows like they usually did, waiting for them to let their guard down for just a second and strike when they were least expecting it. That very scenario had happened less than two weeks ago at one of the small villages at the base of the Himalayan mountain range in Nepal. It hadn’t played out very well to say the least. She had gotten slashed repeatedly by the tomahawks of one of the assassins chasing them while her brother had the misfortune of catching one in the back. Their wounds had finally healed completely a few days ago to fine scars. In another day or so the scars would be gone like nothing had happened.

“They’re gone. For now,” Felicity told him, switching back to night vision. “But we’re going to have to move just in case one of them managed to keep up with us. _Now_.” He nodded and tightened his grip around his Chinese ring daggers before following her over the edge of the building.

They ran through the dark underworld of the city, their black clothes helping them blend in with the less noble and seedier residents of Bangkok. The shadows seemed to bend and reshape in order to keep them hidden and no one seemed to give a second look at the two masked foreigners running through the streets.

Soft, swift footfalls behind them seemed loud in Felicity’s ears despite the din of voices yelling out in Thai from all sides. She slowed, causing Percy to throw her an incredulous look over his shoulder that she countered with a brief signal to turn left immediately and a look of her own that said to trust her. He stared at her for half a second before nodding sharply.

Felicity slowed almost to a light jog and grabbed an arrow out of her quiver before loading her bow. She forced herself to calm her breathing and waited one, two, three heartbeats before twisting midstride and loosing the arrow. The cables deployed at the last possible second and wrapped around the legs and muscular upper body of Kyle Abbot, one of Ra’s al Ghul’s agents. He let out a sharp, surprised yell that startled several of the people around him as he stumbled and fell, harshly hitting the ground with a satisfying thud.

A smirk pulled at the corner of Felicity’s lips at the sight of the brick-like man squirming around on the ground. With one last glance at the assassin, Felicity tugged her hood more securely over her head and disappeared into the crowd. She turned down the thinly populated street Percy went, almost immediately spotting his lanky figure hovering in the darkened doorway of a rundown factory building.

He stepped away from the building and easily fell into step with her on the sidewalk just as she walked past him. They continued down the street, slowly moving away from the more populated area until they were the only ones around. Felicity silently pointed toward the abandoned textile factory ahead of them and Percy nodded in acknowledgement before following her.

They settled in what seemed to be an old office of some sort after sweeping the building and finding no threats lurking in the shadows waiting for them. Felicity settled against the floor with her back pressed to the wall, the door and window both in her immediate line of sight. Casting her brother a quick glance, she caught him yawn into the back of his hand and nudged him with the toe of her boot. “Sleep,” she said once he turned to look at her. “I’ll take first watch.”

His brow furrowed slightly. “Are you sure?”

Felicity smiled softly and nodded. “Yes. Sleep and I’ll wake you later.” A faint grin pulled at his mouth and he immediately lay down.

She watched him until his breaths evened out before turning her gaze to the moon. The pale white light filtered through the single window in the room, bathing everything in a ghostly hue, and she watched as it slowly traveled across the night sky. When it had moved a significant amount, Felicity gently rested her hand on his shoulder. He slowly sat up and they switched places.

It could have been only a couple minutes or a couple hours when Felicity woke with a jolt as Percy roughly shook her shoulder. “Wake up,” he hissed. “We’ve got company.” She nodded sharply once and immediately grabbed her bow where it rested on the floor next to her and nocked an arrow.

They slowly eased the door to the office open and Felicity stepped out first. Once they were sure that there wasn’t anyone lurking in the shadows, they quickly moved through the building and started clearing each level again. It wasn’t until they were standing on the exposed catwalk above the main area of the factory where most of the work used to be done that Felicity spotted somebody.

A lone hooded figure had paused directly beneath them. The man was dressed head to toe in black League garb, face obscured by a mask leaving only his dark, cold eyes visible, and had a long sharp curved sword clutched tightly in his hand. Felicity watched as the man’s fingers flexed and tightened around the handle before stilling as his body tensed to strike.

Light footfalls drew Felicity’s attention and she felt all of the air in her lungs leave her at the appearance of the masked blonde who had seemingly materialized from the shadows.

_Sara._

“It’s time you’ve returned to Nanda Parbat, Al Sah-her,” she called out.

The other assassin chuckled darkly. “We’ll see about that, Ta-er al-Sahfer,” he murmured before striking out with his blade. Sara quickly blocked the swing of the sword with her staff and split the metal pole into two eskrima sticks.

The pair traded blow after blow and it became increasingly obvious to Felicity that Sara and the other assassin were evenly matched. She watched them fight a few minutes longer before urging Percy to move quietly along the catwalk. They slowly made their way to the other side undetected by the assassins and dropped down to the floor beneath them in the darkest shadows of the factory. The two paused long enough to listen to the fighting between the Canary and her prey before edging along the walls toward the exit.

But a low gasp, followed by the sounds of fighting ceasing, abruptly stopped them.

Felicity spun on her heel and watched as Sara collapsed, hand clutched to her neck. The other assassin stared at her for half a second before backing away, his head swiveling around like he was looking for something or somebody. He stilled before breaking off into a hard sprint in their direction. Felicity shoved Percy back deeper into the shadows as he ran passed them. Once he was gone, she went to Sara, Percy close on her heels.

Ripping her mask from her face, Felicity dropped to her knees beside the fallen Canary. "Sara. Sara, open your eyes for me," she murmured urgently, gently pulling the bright blonde wig and mask away. 

Sara let out a low moan as she ran her hand across her cheek. Sluggishly, like it took a lot of effort to do so, she finally opened her eyes. Blue spotted with bright gold stared up at her in confusion and Felicity swore. "Who are you?"

A halfhearted smile pulled at the corners of her mouth as Felicity brushed her hair out of her eyes. "It's me, Sara. It's Felicity," she murmured pushing her hood back from her face. 

“Felicity…” She glanced over her shoulder at her brother. He held out what looked like some sort of dart in his gloved hand for her to see. The sharp needlepoint tip was slick with red from Sara’s blood and a glistening clear substance. “Somebody poisoned her, didn’t they?”

She nodded sharply. “Yes, with Tibetan pit viper venom.” A slim hand came up to rest on her cheek and Felicity focused on Sara again. “Sara…”

“They’re…they’re looking for you, Felicity,” she whispered weakly. “Ra’s wants you. He—”

Felicity held tightly to her hand and gently silenced her. “I know.”

“Tell my dad and Laurel that I love them for me.”

“No.” Felicity shook her head and held her tightly to her chest. “No, you can tell them that yourself, Sara. You’re going to be okay.” She didn’t know if she was saying that for Sara’s benefit or for her own.

Sara gave her a knowing look, the unnatural gold in her eyes bright and darkening by the second. “I wish I got to spend more time with them,” she continued. “We had some stupid fight the last time I was in Starling and said some things we all regret. But I regret not telling them that I love them when I left the most. Promise me you’ll tell them for me, Felicity.” They stared at each other for a long second before Felicity finally nodded.

“I promise, Sara.”

A slim gloved hand reached up and fingered Felicity’s hair. “You look good as a brunette, but you look better as a blonde,” Sara murmured. Felicity chucked softly but said nothing.

“Do you smell that?” Percy asked suddenly.

Felicity glanced around them and swore under her breath. “Smoke,” she spit out as the flames began to build around them seemingly from nowhere.

“It’s no coincidence that after I’m poisoned a fire starts,” Sara murmured weakly. “Go—get yourselves out of here before you die with me!”

Felicity stared at her for a long minute, ignoring her brother’s attempts to pull her from the burning building. She wished she didn’t have to leave her here, that she could save Sara. There were a lot of things that she wanted, but knew she would never get, no matter how hard she wished for them to come true. Life wasn’t like that even if there was magic strong enough to raise the dead back to life.

Finally, she nodded. “Goodbye, Sara,” she whispered into her ear before pressing a kiss to her pale cheek and gently laying her down on the floor.

She let Percy drag her from the building. They were almost out when Felicity spotted through the thick haze and flames the unmistakable figure of Ra’s al Ghul standing on the other side. His attention was focused solely on Sara’s dying form and she could have sworn she saw the ghost of a smile on his face. A man joined him and Felicity felt the anger in her chest burn hotter as she recognized him too.

Joe Rigger, aka Firebug—known arsonist for hire that the Batman had a large file for on the hard drive of his supercomputer.

The Demon’s Head wordlessly handed him a drawstring pouch and everything fell into place.

* * *

**Hong Kong, China.  
** **September 2017.**

“Are you sure this is going to work, Felicity?” Percy whispered to her.

Felicity met his gaze, mouth pressed into a hard, grim line. “It has to. Otherwise, I don’t know what we’re going to do short of walking right into Nanda Parbat.”

They fell silent and Felicity’s eyes closed of their own accord. She let a single tear slip down her cheek as the image of Sara in her arms flashed in her mind again. Ra’s al Ghul would pay one way or another for what he had done. She would make sure of it.

It could have been hours or minutes later when they heard the footsteps on the roof of the little rundown apartment they were holed up in, Felicity wasn’t sure. She reached out and squeezed Percy’s shoulder before rising to her feet. “Showtime,” she murmured softly. They only had to wait a couple seconds before the window exploded as the lithe figure of Lady Shiva came crashing through feet first in a flurry of black leather and long hair.

She landed nimbly on her toes and quickly struck without pause. Felicity caught the foot that came flying at her before she was hit across the chest and shoved Shiva back. This didn’t deter her for long because she began to send three of her throwing knives flying through the air. Felicity quickly sidestepped each of them. Behind her, Percy snatched each of the knives out of the air and sent them back to Shiva.

The assassin dove to the side, but wasn’t fast enough before the last knife caught her in the shoulder. Shiva hissed in pain but flipped back onto her feet, snatching the blade from her flesh just as Felicity closed in on her.

Felicity kicked out twice, hitting Shiva in the ribs, and followed up with rapid blows to vulnerable pressure points before she could react, forcing cries of pain from between her lips. Shiva glared at her and with a roar of anger, launched herself at Felicity. Both women went down crashing down to the floor grappling for control. Violent blows were traded between the two, Percy hovering around them, trying and failing to find an opening to insert himself into the fight.

With a yell of her own, Felicity tucked her knees against her chest and firmly planted her feet against Shiva before kicking the assassin off of her. Using that same momentum, she flipped back onto her feet and with Percy at her side they began to advance on Shiva. The assassin dove for the bed in the small room and grabbed the lone sheet on the mattress, throwing it over their heads.

Blinded, Felicity and Percy tried to pull the sheet off of them, but it was too late.

Lady Shiva used the distraction and made quick work of knocking them both out.

* * *

**Nanda Parbat.  
** **September 2017.**

The bag over her head was violently pulled off and Felicity sucked in air down her lungs with a gasp. She rapidly blinked against the sudden brightness that assaulted her eyes and made a show of restraining against her shackles. Beside her, Percy groaned in pain but she didn’t dare turn to look at him, instead focusing on the very pleased face of Ra’s al Ghul.

“Lady Shiva. You did well,” he praised, dark eyes never leaving Felicity or Percy. “You will receive your reward for bringing these two to me soon.”

Shiva nodded curtly from her position next to Felicity. “Thank you.” She nodded one last time before turning and sweeping out of the cavernous room without so much as a backward glance.

The pleased smile on Ra’s face slipped away the moment the door closed behind the assassin. All that was left behind was a dark, malicious look in his eyes that spoke volumes about what he had planned for them. Felicity glared back at him unflinchingly.

“Do what you want with us, Ra’s,” Felicity spat venomously. “You’ll never get what you want no matter how hard you try to break us.”

Ra’s moved to stand in front of her until he was uncomfortably close, hands loosely clasped behind his back. “We shall see about that.” He stared down at her for a long minute and when he couldn’t find whatever it was that he was looking for from her, he shifted his attention to Percy. “And what of you, Mr. Smoak?”

Percy glared dispassionately at the man, giving nothing away. “What she said.”

Displeasure reads plainly across the Demon’s face as he continued to stare at the siblings. “I do hope you know that if I don’t get what I want, I will ensure that you both suffer a thousand deaths,” Ra’s warned, his voice soft and deadly. Reflexively, Felicity’s gaze snapped to look at the Lazarus Pit less than ten feet away from them. “Take them away,” he ordered.

The guards at the doors swiftly and silently stepped forward and roughly grabbed Felicity and Percy. They were led out of the room and through a maze of hallways before being unceremoniously shoved into a cell. Felicity landed hard on her knees with a low grunt of pain before dropping onto her side as her brother was sent sprawling face first. The door slammed shut with a bang followed by the click of a key in the lock and retreating footsteps down the hall.

After some time, Percy rolled over onto his back. “How long?” he asked softly.

Felicity shifted until she sat upright and folded her legs underneath her. “Until he understands that he will never get what he wants.”

* * *

**October 2017.**

Felicity woke with a jolt as ice-cold water was thrown onto her head. She sat up and glared at Ra’s where he stood on the edge of the room, face expressionless. Her masked torturer deferred to his master and with a flick of the Demon’s fingers another bucket of water was thrown on her.

Wrapping her fingers around the chain that shackled her to the floor in the middle of what Felicity had come to call the interrogation room, she held tight and pulled against her restraints to keep from launching herself across the room at them in anger. Water dripped down her face and from her hair and she was shivering near violently, chilled down to the bone.

They’d been at this for weeks now, alternating between her and Percy for the torture sessions. One week it was her and the next it was him. She knew what mind game Ra’s was trying to play – leave one unharmed to witness the pain inflicted on the other so that they’ll eventually break – but they were better. He was playing their game and they were going to be the ones to come out on top in the end.

A loud, cackle of a laugh clawed its way out of Felicity’s throat. “Is that the best you can do?” she snarled. “Do your worst, Ra’s. I dare you!”

He ignored her outburst. “What is the source of your power?” he asked yet again.

Felicity shook her head. “None of your goddamn business.”

Ra’s stared at her impassively but she could see passed that calm façade of his. He was angry, pissed off. She could tell that he had expected them to break by now with all of the pain and torture he had inflicted on them both physically and psychologically. He had thought that they were weak, easy to manipulate and control into doing his bidding.

He was a fool for thinking that.

For someone who had lived for as long as he has, he should know better than to underestimate his opponent.

“Again,” he called out harshly and another bucket of water was tossed onto her. The momentum of the water knocked Felicity down, her head smacking against the stone floor and plunging her back into the darkness.

* * *

**December 2017.**

“It’s a little red, but an infection hasn’t set in,” Felicity told Percy as she gently probed the shredded skin along his back where Ra’s had taken his whip to him.

Fifty lashes.

She shook her head to herself angrily.

Fucker.

“Looking at how bad it is, these should heal in a week before scaring over,” she continued, helping him pull his shirt back on.

“He kept asking me how we heal so fast between lashings,” he groaned, roughly scrubbing his hands up and down his face. “I wanted to so badly stick him through with my sword. And you should have seen his fucking face when he thought he had finally broken me. He thought I was going to beg him to stop, that I’d tell him everything he wanted to know if he did.” Percy laughed bitterly and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “Ra’s was only going to do twenty-five, but once he realized that I wasn’t as broken as he thought he doubled it.”

Felicity sighed angrily and pulled Percy close, letting him rest his head in the crook of her neck. “You did good,” she murmured, dragging her uninjured hand through his long hair. She flexed her other wrist and hissed softly in pain from Ra’s personally taking over her torture session in the interrogation room three days ago. There wasn’t much that she remembered about what had happened, but she was knew that there was a lot of pain, maybe a little blood, and blazing anger on both her and Ra’s parts.

Even steady breaths against her throat pulled her from her thoughts and Felicity gently shifted Percy from her lap and carefully laid him on his side on the floor beside her. The soft clearing of a throat drew her attention and Felicity spotted Nyssa standing on the other side of the cell door.

“Nyssa,” she greeted, moving to stand in front of the other woman.

“Felicity.” Nyssa stared at her for a long moment, a frown pulling at the corners of her mouth and slightly pinching her features. “If I knew then what I know now, I would not have readily agreed to my father’s orders,” she finally said.

Felicity nodded, the memory of her and her sister crashing through the windows of their London apartment flashing passed her eyes. “But if you did, you would have told Sara and she would have unknowingly put her family – _my family_ – in danger by telling them that I’m still alive.”

“Why do you not tell him what it is that he wants?” she asked suddenly, a fire igniting in Nyssa’s dark eyes at the mention of Sara’s name. “Your lives and the lives of your comrades would no longer be threatened,” she continued. “You and your brother would no longer have to endure the torture he inflicts upon you every day!”

“Your father can never know, Nyssa,” Felicity hissed angrily. “Even if he did somehow learn how we became this way, he would never be able to replicate it for himself or the League. Ra’s al Ghul is too selfish and uncaring,” she spit, shoving away from the door and pacing the length of the cell. “He may be your father, but he does not love you like a parent should. His love is twisted and perverted. Look at what he has done to Ta-er al-Sahfer! At the damage of Talia’s manipulation of Bruce Wayne at his order! _A child born into this world simply because the Demon demanded so._ And do not pretend that you don’t know what Damian’s true purpose was! If Talia hadn’t taken him to Bruce when she had, imagine the type of monster Ra’s would have trained him to be before the time came for him to take his place as his vessel.” Felicity paused and turned to that she had just said was true.

“You fear your father – don’t even try to deny it – but imagine if that had happened, Nyssa,” she continued, voice softer now, less harsh. “The man standing before you would have your beloved nephew’s face, but inside it would be the monster you feared your entire life and your nephew would be gone forever.

“Talia stopped one of your father’s dark plans and I won’t let him create another.”

Nyssa swallowed visibly. The fire dimmed in her eyes as she imagined the future Felicity had painted for her nephew. It was the same one Talia had painted the night she had taken Damian away from Nanda Parbat.

If her father could concoct a plan such as that, she could only imagine the one he would create if he knew the secret to their increased physical strength and speed and the increased healing that she had witnessed in both Felicity and her younger brother.

“Then I hope that you have a plan to escape,” she finally said.

A grin curled at Felicity’s mouth. “Oh, I do,” she promised.

* * *

**February 2018.**

Felicity was roughly shoved down to the floor next to her brother. Her knees cracked painfully against the hard stone, but she ignored the pain. Her gaze was locked on the teenage girl standing between Talia and Nyssa dressed completely in black League armor. The girl didn’t look any older than seventeen with shoulder length black hair and dark blue almond shaped eyes that stood out against her olive skin. She seemed to be attempting to make herself as small as possible with her shoulders hunched and her eyes trained to the ground. It was almost like she was trying to make herself invisible.

But that wasn’t the only thing that drew Felicity’s attention to her.

The girl looked like Lady Shiva.

That fact alone should have made her turn away, but her presence here—in Nanda Parbat of all places—seemed out of place. She was young and innocent and obviously scared of something. Seeing that pulled at Felicity’s heartstrings and reminded her of the mission she had once carried out all those years ago.

_Protect the innocent,_ she thought.

But how was she supposed to do that for this girl when she could barely come up with a plan that didn’t protect anyone without some sort of consequence?

Felicity didn’t know, but she swore she would find a way for this girl.

She tore her gaze away from the girl and refocused on Ra’s.

“I hope that the month I gave you was sufficient time for you,” he was saying. The Demon stood before them in his long, elaborate robes with his hands clasped behind his back like always, the condescending look in his eyes overshadowed by the pure evil Felicity saw there. “Thirty-one days must have been long enough for your wounds to heal. Long enough for you to think about your positions here and what you can do to rectify it.”

Slowly she raised her eyes to meet Ra’s, defiant as ever. “What makes you think that we’re going to tell you anything now when we didn’t before? I have only one thing to give you. _Nothing_.”

Anger blazed hot in the Demon’s dark gaze but beyond that his face gave nothing away. “And what of you, Mr. Smoak?” he asked, turning his attention to Percy. “Unlike you dear sister, have you had a change of heart?”

Percy stared up him, a dispassionate look in his blue eyes. “No. I don’t think I have.”

Ra’s turned away and, with the flick of his fingers, signaled for them to be brought back to their cell.

* * *

**Late April 2018.**

Felicity tracked Ra’s al Ghul’s movements as he silently paced in front of the Lazarus Pit for a few minutes before he finally stilled and sat on the raised edge of the pool, leaving her to stand in the center of the room.

Ra’s stared at her before speaking. “When my Nyssa came before me and informed me of your request to have an audience with me alone, I must confess that I was curious. After all of these months—tell me why. Why now and not before? Perhaps you could have spared yourself and your brother from all of the pain if we had spoken before.”

The corners of her lips twitched as she fought off the urge to smirk and kept her expression blank. “For the past several months, you have tried your damndest to get my brother and I to tell you our secrets but to no avail. But there’s something you don’t know.” She raised her gaze to meet the Demon’s eyes as he stood. “We allowed Lady Shiva to capture and take us to Nanda Parbat.”

The Demon circled her, eyeing her with an appraising look. “Why?”

“I wanted to make you think that you could get what you wanted. That you had won. That you were the one in control. _That you had broken us._ I wanted you to think that you could make us tell you our secrets,” she told him. A smirk pulled at the corner of Felicity’s chapped lips as Ra’s paused behind her, silent and unmoving. “And because I know your secret. I know what you did to Ta-er al-Sahfer.”

“What do you know?” he snarled, gripping her about the shoulders and whipping her around to face him. “How do you know?”

“I was there that night in Bangkok. Kyle Abbot and your Nameless Ones had chased us into the city and Percy and I had hid in that textile factory,” Felicity whispered, leaning away so she could look him in the eye the moment she told him. “I watched her fall and held her as she died from the snake venom. I _saw_ you and Firebug standing together after he started the fire.” He snarled in rage and shoved her away, forcing Felicity to stumble a couple steps before catching herself.

Ra’s paced back and forth in front of the Lazarus Pit and she could feel the unbridled rage rolling off of the Demon in waves. He stopped abruptly, facing the Pit. “I should kill you and be done with this once and for all,” he murmured softly.

Felicity snorted derisively. “Do that and my brother will tell Nyssa what you did to her beloved,” she spit. “She’s not like Talia. She won’t let it go.” The Demon resumed his pacing, hands clasped behind his back. He was the picture of calm, but Felicity knew better. She could still see the anger underneath his thinly veiled façade.

“There’s still something I don’t understand…” she started, closely watching his face. “ _Why_ did you kill Ta-er al-Sahfer? At first I thought it was because she was the _woman_ your _daughter_ loved and you disapproved of their relationship, but then I asked Nyssa about her. She told me Ta-er al-Sahfer had died in an _accident_ rather than murdered on assignment. I couldn’t understand why you would tell her that lie considering what you were planning to do to Bruce Wayne’s son before Talia got him away from you.”

“Keen observation, Miss Smoak,” he praised coolly, watching her with his soulless black eyes. “When you said that Nyssa is not like her older sister, you were correct. Though Talia is next in the line of succession, she does not have the necessary skills in order to succeed me and lead my League of Shadows.

“My Talia is a loyal soldier, willing to please me and do as I say, but my Nyssa—she has the potential to be a great leader.” He smiled then, cruel and satisfied. “I want Nyssa to one day become the next Ra’s and loving that woman was holding her back from her true potential. It was a sickness, a cancer, that needed to be removed.”

Felicity stared at him.

He was cold, colder than she had originally thought.

“If you have known my secret from the very beginning,” Ra’s said, “then what is it that you want, Miss Smoak, other than to make me the fool?”

This was it. This was the moment she had been waiting for since Shiva came crashing through that window in Hong Kong. “I want to make a deal. We’ll keep your secret from Nyssa in exchange for our release and you call off your assassins. You never come after me or any of the others. And I want Lady Shiva’s daughter.”

* * *

**May 2018.**

Percy tipped his head back and laughed a full belly laugh as he sprinted down the stairs carved into the mountain Nanda Parbat sat upon. “Yes!” he crowed, jumping up and throwing his arms up over his head. He sprinted ahead a few more steps before pausing and turning back around. “Oh, my God, I can’t believe that worked, Felicity,” he called up to her.

Felicity threw him a quick grin before focusing back on the girl. “Are you okay?” she asked. The girl nodded once, tightening her grip around Felicity’s waist. She kept her eyes down, using her dark hair as a shield between them. Felicity sighed, softly rubbing the girl’s back. “My name is Felicity and that idiot making a fool of himself is my brother Percy.”

The girl said nothing as they walked toward Percy until he stood flanking her on her other side. She was silent for such a long time that Felicity was surprised when she finally did speak. “Cassandra,” the girl suddenly whispered, her voice soft and lightly accented. “My name is Cassandra Cain.”

Felicity met her brother’s gaze over the girl’s head and he grinned back. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Cassandra,” he said, blue eyes twinkling.

They fell silent again as they continued through the bitter cold, slowly making their way down the Tibetan mountain. The heat and warmth of Nanda Parbat had long left them the further away they got and a small part of Felicity wished they could have kept some of it with them. But she was grateful it was finally all over. Now all she had to do was find the arsonist and put him in jail before tracking down Merlyn and dumping him at the feet of Ra’s al Ghul.

But before any of that, they needed to get Cassandra to safety.

As if she could sense her thoughts, Cassandra turned to look at her, fright filling her pale blue eyes. “Will Ra’s try to take me back to the League?” she asked.

Felicity shook her head, tightening her grip around the girl’s shoulders. “No, Cassandra, he won’t,” she reassured, “You’re safe from him now—I promise. He’ll find another to take the title of Ubu and become his bodyguard.” Cassandra nodded but said nothing.

Hours later, they finally made it to the bottom of the mountain. Nanda Parbat was nothing but a speck in the sky completely hidden by heavy cloud cover. _Good riddance_ , Felicity thought as she turned away, tugging Cassandra along with her. They continued walking the narrow path that led to the base of the mountain until they reached the small village. Once the villagers caught sight of them, she and Percy with their hoods pulled up to cover their faces and their weapons visible and Cassandra dressed in her League garb, they quickly retreated into their homes, slamming their doors closed followed by the sliding of locks.

Felicity didn’t blame them. If she saw people like them, she’d be doing the same.

She pushed her hood back and replaced her mask for her glasses before handing Cassandra off to Percy. “I’ll be right back,” she said, smoothing her dark hair into a ponytail. “I’m just going to send a message off real quick in that Internet café over there.” Percy nodded and led Cassandra off in the opposite direction of the café. Felicity watched them turn the corner before entering the sweltering heat of the shop.

Nobody paid her any attention as she casually made her way to the furthest computer in the back. Once she was logged in, Felicity reached into her jacket and pulled out an encrypted flash drive and plugged it into the computer. After she was sure the encryption program was running and the local server was secure, she made quick work of hacking into the massive supercomputer in the Batcave. Turns out that spending nearly every day for five and a half months in the massive cave system beneath Wayne Manor doing nothing but training and snooping through the supercomputer when Bruce wasn’t around was much more beneficial than she thought.

It wasn’t long before someone noticed her presence and tried to shut her down. A smile curled at Felicity’s mouth. She’d missed this. It had been too long since the last time she’d been behind a keyboard. Her fingers flew across the keys and prevented them from locking her out, making sure to slip a message in.

Nothing happened for a few minutes before a response lit up the screen. The corner of her mouth ticked up into a grin and she quickly typed back.

A few minutes later, she did a quick search before logging off the computer and making her way out of the café. Once she was out of sight, she put her mask back on and pulled her hood snug over her head as she briskly walked to where Percy and Cassandra were waiting for her.

“Well?” he asked.

Cassandra immediately attached herself to Felicity’s side again as they continued walking through the village. She wrapped her arm around the girl’s shoulders and looked over at Percy, a grin lighting up her face. “Nightwing will be here in the morning to take Cassandra to Gotham City and meet the whole Bat family.” She looked at Cassandra next. “They’re friends of ours—you’ll be safe with them. I promise,” Felicity told her and Cassandra nodded.

They continued walking until they stood in front of an abandoned monastery resting on the very edge of the village. A stone wall, no less than twelve feet tall, surrounded the monastery with a locked wrought iron gate at its center. Felicity quickly looked around them and once she was sure no one was around, she quickly scaled the side of the wall until she sat straddling it.

“Boost her up,” she called down to Percy and he crouched beside the wall, hands cupped together. Cassandra stepped forward and allowed him to toss her up in the air. Felicity caught her by the hands and swung the girl up until she sat on the wall beside her.

Seconds later, Percy sat astride beside them. As Felicity surveyed the area below them, he quickly looked Cassandra over and offered her a reassuring smile. “You okay?” he asked her. Cassandra nodded and told him yes.

Not seeing anything to cause alarm, Felicity swung her leg over and dropped down the side of the wall, landing on the hard frozen ground beside the wall in a low crouch. She stood and turned back to face the wall, forced to tip her head back to see the others. “Cassandra,” she called up, “Jump and I’ll catch you.” The girl hesitated and she watched as Percy said something to her that she couldn’t hear but seconds later they both dropped down from the wall. Felicity caught Cassandra just as her brother landed beside her. She gently placed her back on her feet and they began to slowly make their way through the monastery.

The buildings surrounding the main courtyard at the center of the monastery were short and squat, made of the same stone as the wall. The ground beneath their feet was cobbled except at the very center of the courtyard where an ancient banyan tree stood looming hundreds of feet in the air above them. Its roots pushed up from the ground, forming cracks and fissures in the cobbled ground surrounding it. Stone benches covered in moss formed a circle around the tree, broken and forgotten.

Felicity turned away from the courtyard and ushered the others into the closest building. They settled in, backs pressed against the wall, and watched as the sun set and night fell, talking in low tones. Cassandra fell asleep first; her head nestled in Felicity’s lap. Eventually Percy joined her where he sat on Felicity’s other side, shoulder pressed against hers with his sword resting across his legs.

Night settled in and so did Felicity. Fingers stroking through Cassandra’s short hair, she watched as the darkness came and went, the hours passing until finally the sky started to brighten, turning from a deep inky purple to a bright red-orange.

The whirring of a jet engine in the distance moving fast sounded and Felicity leapt to her feet, jostling Percy and Cassandra awake in the process. She sprinted outside into the courtyard just in time to spot the unmistakable dark shape of the Batwing cutting through the sky.

Percy joined her, Cassandra close behind him, and they watched as the black, bat-shaped plane landed on the other side of the courtyard. A tall figure stepped from the Batwing dressed in a black body suit covered with plated armor and a blue, bird shaped emblem across his breast and approached them. The man grinned from behind his domino mask and made to hug them, but Felicity and Percy each stepped back before he got the chance to.

“Oh, come on. Just one little hug?” he pleaded teasingly.

Felicity shook her head at him. “We don’t have time for hugs, Nightwing,” she scolded. “We’re exposed standing around here and I want to get as far from this place as possible once I know Cassandra is safe.” It was going to be dangerous enough with just her and Percy going off to track down Joe Rigger. She didn’t want to put the poor girl into danger again after just getting her out of the Demon’s clutches.

Nightwing’s attention shifted from her to Cassandra. He bent slightly at the knees so he could look her in the eyes and offered her a soft smile before slowly peeling away his mask to reveal kind blue eyes behind the white lenses. “Hi, there. My name’s Dick,” he said. “You must be Cassandra. Felicity told me she got you away from the League of Assassins.”

Cassandra nodded. “She told me you would take me some place safe, some place away from Ra’s al Ghul,” she responded, closely scrutinizing his expression and body language.

“And she was right. I’m going to take you back to Gotham City and you’ll meet my adoptive father and brothers and you’ll be safe with us. I promise you, Cassandra.” He offered her his hand and waited.

After a tense beat, Cassandra nodded and hesitantly took Dick’s hand. “Okay.”

Dick stood and replaced his mask before leading Cassandra to the Batwing. After settling her in, he walked back over to them. “Do I want to know what you’re doing so close to Nanda Parbat?” Dick asked them.

She shook her head with a grim smile. “No, I don’t think you do, Dick.”

“What about why you’re not in London anymore?”

Percy gave a sharp laugh. “Nope, you don’t want to know about that either. But let’s just say it didn’t work out,” he said, sharing a look with his sister.

“Okay.” Dick nodded once. “Be careful,” he warned. “Last I counted, there’re at least five assassins and hitmen running around hunting you guys so they can get a huge payday from Ra’s.”

Felicity shared another look with Percy, thinking of Lady Shiva and all the others they had run into. “Oh, we know about them,” she told him dryly.

“Just making sure,” he told them. Felicity and Percy allowed Dick to hug them goodbye before he sprinted back to Cassandra and the Batwing. They waved as the plane lifted into the air before finally disappearing.

“So,” Percy drawled as they made their way out of the monastery, “where are going while we wait for Ra’s to fulfill the other parts of the deal?”

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “North, to Moscow. That’s where Rigger is going.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to the present next chapter. We’ll be back in Starling and then it’ll be Felicity vs. Oliver ;) but unfortunately, I think this is gong to be the last normal update for awhile. Classes are starting next week and I don't know when I'll be able to post next. See you soon, lovelies.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr [here](http://angelqueen87.tumblr.com).


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